Raku is a technique for glazing and firing pottery very quickly, almost always outdoors, and with exciting, beautiful and sometimes unexpected results. Original Japanese raku ware is rather different from the western variation, which has become popular in this country over recent years. Recently I have developed an interest in Japanese pottery. 
These are my hand pinched and finished traditional raku tea bowls, made with Japanese potter, Shozo Michikawa at West Dean college.
However, it is the western style of raku firing that I have enjoyed trying, with my home-made kiln, behind my studio at home. 
The technique involves taking red hot glazed pots from the kiln with long tongs, and plunging them into sawdust or paper in order to produce extreme, ‘reduction’ effects. The way it works is that the burning sawdust takes its oxygen from the glaze on the pots. So the green glaze containing copper oxide gives up its oxygen, leaving flashes of bright copper on the surface of the pots. Any unglazed areas become blackened with the smoke, and this adds to the distinctive look of western style raku pottery. Since these pots are very low fired, only just over 1000 degrees, they are not suitable for containing fluids. Also, the copper in the glaze means that they cannot be used for food or drink. They are, however very pretty!
