Of all the methods of firing, I like Raku the best. Often a little scary (a T.A. at the
college was responsible for burning off most of the hair on one side of my head, as well as my eyelashes, and
eyebrows, not to mention damage to my left cornea), but under the proper care, the end results are worth the effort!
Raku is not for the squeamish -- although you could ask another potter to pull your ware
(something I did for quite a while after the accident), but that takes the thrill out of it. And the placement of the ware
into the combustibles attributes for the unique pattern on your pieces (its hard to leave that up to others who may not know
what you were hoping for, especially in the 'heat' of things, when time is of the essence).
I would be more than happy to go into more detail of the methods and temperature of Raku, let me know if you are
interested. I realize that some of my readers are new to this.
