On Saturday 18 July I did something I’ve wanted to try for ages: my very first raku firing, on a course hosted by the lovely lot at Claire’s House Pottery in Bury St Edmunds. You might remember them from the spring ceramics market. This time there was no table of monsters. Just a very hot kiln, a bin of sawdust and three little makes of mine with everything to lose!
What is raku firing?
Raku started in Japan hundreds of years ago, and it’s about as far from a normal, patient kiln firing as you can get.
The pieces are made and bisque fired as usual, then glazed. But instead of a slow firing that takes most of a day, the raku kiln races up to around 1,000°C. Then, while everything is still red hot, each piece is lifted out with long tongs and put straight into a bin of sawdust and paper, and the lid goes on.
That last part is called reduction, and it’s where the magic happens. The burning sawdust pulls the oxygen out of the glaze, so copper turns to flashes of shiny metal, colours shift from teal to burgundy to burnt orange, and any bare clay goes a deep smoky black. It’s also why raku needs its own gritty clay, which can take the shock without cracking.
Nobody gets to choose exactly what comes out. The flames, the smoke and the timing decide, which is either thrilling or terrifying depending on how attached you are to what went in.
Praying to the raku fire gods
I was quite attached! A couple of weeks before, I hand built my pieces from raku clay so they had time to dry and have their bisque fire. Two were Funguys who turned out to be rather elegant ladies, the sort who really enjoy a cuppa tea, in the fine china, in the garden. The third was a little horned chap who was either a fire god or a demon. I still haven’t decided.
He went into the fire first, and everything survived.
My fancy lady mushrooms survived and came out looking magnificent, and I’m sure that’s all down to my little fire demon going first.
Meet the three who came home
All three are now in the shop. Like everything I make they’re one of a kind, and with raku that’s doubly true. I couldn’t repeat these if I tried.
The Raku Fire Demon has two glossy blue horns above a scorched, mottled body of teal, cobalt, burnt orange and dark copper. He’s small enough for a shelf and looks very pleased with himself for going first.
Prudence stands with her arms folded and her cap tipped to one side, in teal, copper and dark burgundy that change as the light moves across her.
Daphne is the blue one, with a wide cap of deep cobalt running into purple-brown at the rim and a shimmer of metal over the top. You can find the rest of her family in the Funguys.
Looking after a raku piece
Raku is fired cooler than my usual stoneware, so the clay stays a little porous. That means these three are for looking at, not for food or drink, and they won’t hold water. Keep them indoors and dry, give them a dust with a soft cloth, and they’ll sit on a shelf looking magnificent for years.
A huge thank you to Claire’s House Pottery for hosting the course. I came away buzzing and I’d love to do it again! If one of these three has caught your eye, don’t dawdle.
