Richard Mahaffey on mon 17 dec 01
Noel,
Tsk, tsk, tsk. Why be so mean? With your name, in this season you
should be nice. (Hmmm.....Maybe that is why you answered the way you
did.)
The following is for Mike Martino,
It might be said that American raku is a myth. One of my first teachers
called the American stuff American Flash Fire, since it is not Raku. I
believe in the back of The World of Japanese Ceramics by Herbert Sanders
there are some glaze formulas.
The real stuff (Japanese) is typically lead glazed sometimes with an
iron bearing slip underneath which creates the wonderful Salmon red that
is know as red raku. You might also look up Ohi pottery as the Ohi
family is descended from the Raku family of Kyoto. Ohi is based in
Kanazawa, Japan. Perhaps Jim White of Joliet Junior College could shed
some light as he worked with Ohi for a couple of years.
Mike if you want I can send you the formulas in Sanders' book for
testing.
Wishing everyone health, happiness and peace in 2002.
Rick Mahaffey
Tacoma Community College
Tacoma, Washington, USA
vince pitelka on tue 18 dec 01
> It might be said that American raku is a myth. One of my first teachers
> called the American stuff American Flash Fire, since it is not Raku. I
> believe in the back of The World of Japanese Ceramics by Herbert Sanders
> there are some glaze formulas.
Richard -
Yes it might be said, but in my opinion it would be neither fair nor
accurate. I think the primary point here is that there is no such thing as
a single identifiable style referred to as "Japanese raku." Several years
ago my son wrote an excellent post about this which I forwarded to Clayart,
and I could probably dig that up, or it could probably be found in the
archives. Essentially, the traditions of the Raku family have evolved over
time, and many other Japanese potters have adapted those traditions. And
thus it is perfectly appropriate for English and American potters to have
further adapted what they learned from the Japanese. When Hal Riegger and
Paul Soldner started doing the post-firing smoking process it was an
ingenious variation on Japanese raku traditions.
We make the mistake of indentifying raku as a single, tightly defined
process, but we are unfairly imposing that identification. We do that a lot
with traditions borrowed from other cultures.
Several years the St. Louis Art Museum installed a small collection of
contemporary Japanese ceramics. Among the pieces is a raku water jar which
is simply identified as "raku," and obviously was subjected to a post-firing
smoking. So it seems that the adaptation of tradition has come full circle,
and some Japanese potters are now using "American raku."
Best wishes -
- Vince
Vince Pitelka
Appalachian Center for Crafts
Tennessee Technological University
1560 Craft Center Drive, Smithville TN 37166
Home - vpitelka@dtccom.net
615/597-5376
Work - wpitelka@tntech.edu
615/597-6801 ext. 111, fax 615/597-6803
http://www.craftcenter.tntech.edu/
>
> The real stuff (Japanese) is typically lead glazed sometimes with an
> iron bearing slip underneath which creates the wonderful Salmon red that
> is know as red raku. You might also look up Ohi pottery as the Ohi
> family is descended from the Raku family of Kyoto. Ohi is based in
> Kanazawa, Japan. Perhaps Jim White of Joliet Junior College could shed
> some light as he worked with Ohi for a couple of years.
>
> Mike if you want I can send you the formulas in Sanders' book for
> testing.
>
>
> Wishing everyone health, happiness and peace in 2002.
>
> Rick Mahaffey
> Tacoma Community College
> Tacoma, Washington, USA
>
>
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