process page

THE RAKU PROCESS

RAKU pots begin life like any other pot, being thrown or hand built and then bisque fired to about 1400 degrees F. They are then glazed and dried. The next step is a warming oven to reduce the shock of being placed into a kiln that is already hot. Here you can see the pots being loaded from the warming kiln on the right into the raku kiln on the left. In the raku kiln the pots are heated to a temperature of about 1800 F.

Once the raku pots are at temperature, the kiln door is opened, or as in this photo, the kiln top is lifted and the pots are taken from the kiln while they are still red hot. They are then put in to barrels of combustible material, and allowed to cool with lids on the barrels. This smoky process adds lots of carbon to the glazes and the clay body of the pottery. Oxygen is also leached out of the glazes to create dramatic changes in colors.

The raku pots are then cooled and cleaned to remove the excess carbon deposits. This stage is where the pots first begin to reveal the changes that we have created by using the raku process.

At last we reach the finished product! We can achieve bright copper colors, dramatic contrasts of black and white, and all sorts of beautiful gradations of color! Click on the images below to see larger pictures of our RAKU pottery!