A Raku demonstration at Little Myles, Stondon Massey

Belatedly. I thought I'd post some pictures of the Raku event we held at Little Myles Farm Pottery in Stondon Massey, Essex in September. This was organised by artist and owner of the Pottery Judy Cowan and resident potter/technician extraordinaire Tina Capener.

The Pottery is in a wonderful country location, with landscaped grounds, and the studio facilities are excellent. Much fun was had on the day- although results it was fair to say were mixed! We ended stacking up a lot of work in the kiln-on about 4 kiln shelves- not recommended- at one point a kiln shelf collapsed- although miraculously nothing was broken.

We used some local oak wood shavings for some of the reduction, alas I think it was a bit damp so this affected the resulting reduction lustre. However plenty of decent white crackle was achieved- and the copper glaze achieved a sort of lava-gunmetal finish. Not what we were expecting (and there was some disapointment)- but as I kept saying "this is Raku!" I can spend an entire day - the wind in the wrong direction.....a butterfly flaps it's wings at the wrong time... and it all goes "pear shaped." On the whole there were some good results and I think most people were generally pleased. Thanks to Judy and Tina for a lovely day- all the tea and coffee- and it was great to see the most original and talented work by the group's resident potters.

Comments

Making and firing Raku tiles

I have just had in one or two orders and enquiries concerning Raku tiles. Making them can drive you to despair- what with their tendancy to warp, crack and shrink! It's amazing how something so simple is in actual fact so hard to make. It's also very difficult to lift a flat object out of the kiln with tongs from a red hot kiln. Well, with some prior experience, I've developed a firing system for tiles now which is now working pretty well. Quite simply, I lay each tile on a flat bed of ceramic fibre. That way each tile is raised slightly off the kiln shelf- and it's then easy to grasp the tile with tongs and drop into your reduction chamber/smoking bin. I stack two or three kiln shelves and can pack in about 20 tiles in one batch - depending on size. I do let the kiln cool slightly before carefully removing each shelf of tiles. I back off the gas- get each shelf of tiles out- then power back up to temperature and repeat till they're all safely ...

Early days with volcanic and crater glaze part 2....

I glazed a couple of volcanic/crater glaze tapered bowls recently. They almost "half" work- but I'm still not convinced I've got it right- although it's promising. I layered combinations of glaze but I'm having a slight problem with the thick layers of silicon carbide glaze crawling. Sticky fingers maybe? Lots more to come over the next few months, probably with the next recipe- Pinnel Strontium Crater - with a variety of glaze stain additions . It's a pretty reliable recipe so fingers crossed.

Mo Jupp

My connection to Mo was as a student at Middlesex University in the dog days of the ceramics course during the 90's. He was my personal tutor for four years. Diminutive of stature and blinking in the funny way he did, we all came to love him as a tutor. Middlesex then, had a reputation for slip casting and mold making, and I was awful at both! Instead I had more of an interest in sculpture rather than functional tableware. Mo seemed to take an interest in my progress. He was very perceptive of individual students' abilities and offered guidance without ever dominating the discussion. He could be critical of course, but in such a way that was constructive and not "dead ended." At times he played down his reputation ,when we first year students twigged what a great artist he really was. He simply claimed that he was a big fish in a small pond unlike his heroes - Giacometti or Modigliani. Modestly he said his income nearly all came from teachi...

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