I hosted my first ever Raku firing in my backyard, I was joined by some local potters and enthusiasts. I have been wanting to do a Raku firing for years since I had most of the parts and this gave me a boost to make it happen. I had salvaged an abandonned Raku kiln that I fixed it up and dried out on top of my big kiln for a year.
I had good responses from the poster and messaging everyone I know who has done pottery on Haida Gwaii.
I set up 2 glazing tables with a variety of Raku glazes, a crackle glaze and a naked Raku glaze, 2 washes and 10 coloured terra sig slips. I had a big bag of dry sawdust for the reduction phase in metal containers, along with other options to sprinkle sugar, salt and soda ash for additional effects. I had brushes and sponges, buckets of water and also another wooden table with bricks on it to clean the pots on afterwards. It was good to have everything ready for people to use, I set it up similarly to other glazing workshops I attended with everything ready to go.
I’ve done alot of reading and watching videos though nothing prepares you for it like experience so I did a test firing the day before, running through the equipment, the temperatures and the glazes to get a feel for the whole process. It gave me examples to show and a bit of feedback to improve on this group firing.
One cycle takes about 60-90 minutes to get up to the temperature of 980 C, at which time we each took our multiple pieces and set them into the individual reduction bins with sawdust.
One of the things that came out of it was the community aspect, the loud burner and spectacular nature of Raku firing attracted friends and family and a few neighbours. I enjoyed how everyone had to make their own decisions for their pots, they had to decide how to glaze each piece, what to leave bare, how much to reduce or smoke them. Sometimes we helped each other to get pieces out one at a time. Another aspect that emerged was the inspiring nature of trying new things out, “next time I could try it this way with this type of sculpture…” I am already thinking about doing it again for myself and a few others – and now that it’s all set up, I’m thinking ahead about the possibilities of hosting a 2 day workshop to include 1 day of making pots and sculptures, and another day of firing.
