Thursday, May 07, 2009

Raku

Since Christmas, Mira has been taking a night pottery class. The first part was "pottery for teens" which she didn't like very much because her classmates were more interested in running round the school and socializing than with actually making pots. SO when the second set of night classes were ready to run, she asked if she could be in the adult one. I talked to her teacher and he said that it was fine because she actually had enough focus and was serious enough to be with the adults.

The class was 7 weeks but on the last week they really couldn't make anything so Chris decided to do a raku firing. Raku is a quick firing method unlike the conventional firing methods that take more than a day to slowly bring the kiln up to temperature and then hold it there and then let everything slowly cool off.

The first thing that you have to do is put on protective clothing. The kiln is really hot!
Then using long metal tongs you put the pots in the kiln and shut the door and wait 30 to 45 minutes.
The tongs are grabbed again and the hot pots are taken out and put in a garbage can containing crumpled newspaper and sawdust.

This creates quit a bit of smoke and the newsprint and sawdust catch fire.
After about 15 minutes, the pots are cool enough to be quenched in water where they cool enough to handle and get scrubbed off!
Here is Mira with her pot.
She was not happy that it was her last class until the fall.
But I am taking a raku class this summer! It is part of the Edventures program that is running this summer. I am teaching a temari ball workshop and as an instructor I get a discount on any one workshop that I would like to take.
If you are going to be in the area this summer, you should check out the long list of workshops that are being offered.

8 comments:

David T. Macknet said...

That seems like a very short firing! Wow! That's really cool!

tanita✿davis said...

Hey, nice pot! Maybe you can finagle Mira into another pottery class this summer? It's always nice to have something you really like to do without other pesky people your age to interfere ;)

Christine said...

That face is so sour! :)

Julia said...

Nice to see someone who likes to do pottery. I can see Mira doing some very creative works sometime in the future...

The eyes and the lips tells it all. BIG DISAPPOINTMENT.

mira's papa said...

Mamoo, what do you mean "sometime in the future"? She does a lot of creative things now. Amazing things, actually.

And as for the face, Mira's is made of rubber. She can shape it in a million ways, some of them not so nice to look at.

Julia said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Julia said...

I tried to correct a typo after I posted my comment and I deleted it.

Here it is again:

I mean that Mira will probably do some serious creative things in pottery, not just pots. As for he. rubber face, well... well... that's creative too, sort of.

KansasA said...

Mira is such a pretty girl, even with her sour face :)