Richard mahaffey on thu 18 sep 97
Partick,
Herb Sanders, due to his experience in Japan insisted that in the US
virtually no one was doing Raku. It seems that they do not use reduction
cans for Raku. He called it American Flash Fire. The ceramics studio at
SjSU is/ was on the second floor so running for the exits meant going down
stairs, which we did not do.
There was a raku kiln under the hood with
the reduction kilns but we were cautioned to fire Raku after dark so teh
fire department would not respond. ( This is a bad thing in the view of
most ceramics teachers I know).
Most of us had off campus kiln s to fire Raku. Dr Sanders was quite
compelmentary regarding a semseter project done completely in "American
Falsh Fire". He also did not make any comment when I refered to the
project as Raku verbally and in th ewrite up I did on it.
Interestingly enough, David Kuraoka, who teaches at San Francisco State. did
a lot of Raku while Sanders was teaching at SJSU. Both of these guys were
known for doing some excellent Raku from time to time.
But then that was then and it was a long time ago.
Rick Mahaffey SJSU '72
Art Department
Tacoma Community College
Tacoma WA USA
Guess what it is raining today (has been doing so for a week) What a
surprise.
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