Sacrifices to the Raku Gods

Taking the next steps in my long career of self-education, I'm currently trying to teach myself how to do Raku enamels. Raku, for those of you uninitiated in this mysterious art, is a process by which you place the hot enamels (or ceramics, where this is more commonly used) into an oxygen reduced environment. This pulls the oxides out of the glaze or enamel creating interesting and often iridescent effects. Traditionally, one would place the piece, hot from the kiln, into a container of combustible materials such as paper, wood chips, leaves or such. This material would burst into flames, using up the surrounding oxygen. By placing a lid on the container the remaining oxygen would be burned away, leaving the necessary environment for raku to occur. The results are unpredictable at best. One has to have a certain carefree attitude, and not be too invested in the results, to walk this path.

I am not completely without guidance on this journey. I've got a great article by Jean Tudor, a chapter in a book by Fred Ball, and comments and suggestions from my friends in the Enamelforum list-serv. But at the end of the day, mostly you just try stuff and see what works and what doesn't.

I can tell you right now what doesn't work... Try finding something the size of a quarter in a trashcan full of smoldering paper.... cough... choke... Subsequent attempts using a colandar in the trashcan or firing it in a cookie tin, met with varying success. I finally started getting some more predictable results with a 3 quart farberware steamer pot. Predictable, I have learned, does not always mean better. I think I got some more interesting pieces out of the trashcan, but even with a respirator and goggles, I'm not sure how often I could survive that particular process.

Along with learning about Raku, I'm finally learning another valuable skill. Taking adequate notes to be able to repeat an experiment. I've always been fairly lax in the note taking department. Ok, I'll admit it, I have NEVER taken notes. People would look at my work and say "how did you do THAT one". Unless I wrote a magazine article about it, such questions have always been met with blank stares on my part. If it's more than a couple months old I have no idea how I made it. But now I've vowed to mend my ways! (Not to mention I REALLY want to get this working right long term). I'm taking copious notes on each peice and starting a raku notebook. Who knows where this will lead... Maybe I'll even clean off my desk! .... nah....

Attempted to upload a couple photos of said raku enamels, only to meet with failure on the Blogger end. Will try again tomorrow.

Enjoy!

Pam East
www.pinzart.com