Description
A large raku fired bowl, hand made from crank clay and decorated with organic and metallic marks and colours. It is 36cm diameter and 4cm deep.
The bowl contains this poem by Chris –
You were made to choose
What you look for
You will find
Look for barren emptiness
It is there
Look for cynical meanderings
And you will wander those weary roads
Or you may look for wonder and beauty
The fingerprints of grace
On every rock
Every frond of fern
Every wisp of mist
This bowl was made by roughly shaping the clay, then painting the outside with slip. Next, the slip covered surface was painted with sodium silicate, also known as water glass. This helps the surface of the clay to form interesting cracks and bubble, which were encouraged further by teasing open the form by pressing from the inside. The pot is then air dried, before having a first firing in the electric kiln.
The next stage of the making involves glazing the pot, with our own glazes made from raw materials. Next, the raku kiln!
Raku (meaning ‘easy’ in Japanese) is a process by which a pot is heated quickly to around 1000 degrees using a gas burner, then it is placed in a reduction bin – a sealed metal bin containing combustible material. By controlling the amount of oxygen reaching the glazes, the potter can produce a range of different colours, although much of this is also down to chance!
Finally the pot is sealed then waxed to keep in as much of the fragile raku detail as possible.
NB- raku pots, as they are fired to lower temperatures, are not food safe, or guaranteed to be water tight.
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