Anagama: Workshops and Raku

Wood-Firing News < JULY 2009 >

'CERAMIC SUMMER IN NEBOCADY 2009'
Nebocady-Decin, Czech Republic 5th - 19th July 2009

I am invited to run a workshop at a symposium in Czech Republic next month. My workshop is scheduled at weekend on the 11th & 12th July. I will be talking and giving demonstrations of traditional Japanese woodfire pottery. Along with my pyromaniac passion, I would very much like to talk about tea ceremony, flower arranging and Zen philosophy. Please click Jurta.cz and find more information of the event.

As I am going away in July and I have also been having a great difficulty of finding a suitable location for my new studio and kilns in Tring, Hertfordshire. I have to postpone my 'ANAGAMA International 2009' until everything is ready to invite woodfire enthusiasts. Click Anagama in the Wood 2008 for some images from the last year's event.

What is Raku?

    'Raku' is a Japanese word that can be translated as meaning "enjoyment". It can be said that 'Raku' is the direct result of the collaboration between the famous tea-master Rikyu and the roof-tile maker Chojiro.
    During the Civil War in late 16th Century Japan, the feudal lord, Hideyoshi gave an ideograph of 'Raku' engraved on a gold seal to Chojiro, who adopted the word as his family title.
    What makes 'Raku' unique is the use of low-fired clay and glazes in a small quick-firing kiln. Indeed Chojiro is said to have been the first to produce, in 1580, a low-fired glazed pottery which involved putting the tea bowls into, and taking them out of, a red-hot muffle kiln, rather than waiting for the kiln to cool.
    When the glazes have melted, the bowls are removed from the kiln. As they cool, the glazes are exposed to oxidation and reduction, and the resultant diversity of delicate and muted colours renders each pot unique. The rawness of the clay and the gentle nature of the glaze create the opportunity to achieve extremely subtle variations of colour.

(The six images above are all well-known masterpieces by Chojiro.)

    'Raku' bowls are made from refractory clay, which is able to withstand the extreme thermal shocks to which it is exposed in the firing process. The clay is not hard-fired, and therefore the bowls are relatively fragile and porous until sealed by use with tea, or by the application of oil. Nevertheless, the body is an excellent thermal insulator and the Japanese consider it ideal for drinking hot green tea.
    Couple this with the infinite variations of understated colour and texture through which each bowl each tells a story, and it is easy to see why this firing process became so widely acclaimed and appropriately named as 'Raku', or enjoyment.
    Chojiro's tea bowls usually have their individual names; some poetic and some witty were given by successive owners. We can see how those bowls have been treated as priceless treasures for centuries.