Steven Branfman on mon 11 feb 02
To Cate Loveland, Michael Imes and others,
With all due respect to everyone involved, here's my 2 cents on the recent
raku thread:
First of all, Michael offers some good advice and suggestions in his post
from 2/4 however it is a fallacy to pass on and believe that: "since both
bisque and raku are usually fired to cone 06........." Raku is not usually
fired to any particular temperature. Your bisque firing will depend on the
clay that you are using and your style of glaze firing. Your glaze firing
will depend on your glaze palette and effects you are looking to achieve. The
most important thing to realize about western style raku is that the
technique centers on the firing method and process, and not on the glazes
that you use. It is true that most raku is bisque fired in the range of cone
09-06 and the glaze firing takes place in the range of cone 012-06 but those
are not exclusive.
Second, there is only one criteria that makes a glaze a "raku glaze" and that
is if you use it in a raku firing! That includes commercial low fire glazes,
so called "raku glazes", stoneware glaze, majolica, underglazes, luster, etc.
Enough said about that. Now, go knock yourselves out!
Steven Branfman
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