Playing With Fire

At our last ceramics class of the year, we did a raku firing. Usually once our pots have been low-fired ("bisque" fired), we slather them with the goop that will be melted into glaze, and then place them on shelves to wait. Anonymous ceramics apprentices will later place the pots into the big high-fire kiln, and a week later remove them to the closet that holds finished pots.

Raku firings are our one opportunity to run a firing ourselves. Under our teacher Debi's supervision, we load the pots into a primative kiln, light the propane torch, and later carefully remove the pots.

This year's class has been a really wonderful group. We chat through each Monday night -- sometimes about our pottery, and often about children, movies, books, pets, and politics.

While the first set of pots are firing, we put the next round (including my candle lantern) on top of the kiln to warm.

When the pots are "cooked," they are shiny and translucent. We remove them using tongs and great care, and place them in trash cans filled with paper, which catches on fire and makes a smelly mess, in the process giving the glazed pots more visual texture. From there, we plunge the pots in water to crackle the glaze.

This year we had two retired firefighters in our class; we thought they might report us to authorities when they saw the raku firing! But it turned out they liked playing with fire as much as the rest of us.

All told there's about an hour or more when the pot is firing and then still too hot to touch. The result is unpredictable. You never know what color or texture is going to come out of a raku firing. But some of the best things in life come through the fire, and their wonderfulness cannot be predicted.