Raku Project

Project Challenge: Develop 2-3 forms that relate through subject and surface: at least one must be thrown, at least one must be a realistically formed animal.  

Raku Research Link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1VeTth15gdRb4Mk0IKLcqoPg9dLpSFzEXF9oMPF4F7IY/edit 

Reflection Responses: 

What is a Raku Firing? How can you take advantage of the process (and wax!) in your surface design?  Having completed this project, what are your responses to these two questions?

A Raku firing would be when you fire different ceramic materials, take them out of the kiln while it is still extremely hot, and submerge them in woodchips/water to cool down. This process takes a significantly decreased amount of time compared to regular firing, which is incredibly interesting to me. After we added the glazes to our pieces, we left them in the kiln for around 1-1.5 hours and when they came out of the kiln, they went straight into a pile of woodchips for around 5-10 minutes. After we waited for the fire to be put out, we placed them in a bucket of water. Finally, we took our pieces out of the water and scraped off the remaining ash. Our pieces were finally ready to be displayed!

Are you happy with your work on your raku forms?  Why or why not?  Explain how your two pieces relate and what you could do next time to create more of a relationship.

I am very happy with my work. I believe that I put a lot of effort into exceeding the criteria of this project in the complicated time slot we had. I think I made my animals look as realistic as I could, using unfamiliar clay. For my animal, I chose to create a penguin. To relate my animal and bowl together, I decided to wax little fish on the inside of my bowl. This was to demonstrate the relationship between penguins and how they eat fish to survive. Something that I wish I had done to make the connection more adamant would be to think about adding a body part of the penguin to my bowl. This could include feet, beaks, fins, etc. But given the opportunity, I think I did a solid job accentuating the relationship between fish and penguins.

Please describe what you thought was the most informative part of the field trip (or, if you did not go on the field trip, the most informative part of this project?).  Are there changes you would recommend for the next time the forming of this project is done?  Why or why not?

The entirety of the field trip was extremely fun to me. I really enjoyed touring parts of Portland I hadn’t been to, like India Street. The most informative part of the trip for me was probably the overall firing at Portland Pottery. I really was interested in learning about how the different kiln works from the one we have at school. The process shocked me with how many steps went into making the ceramic pieces classes have done previously. I wouldn’t recommend changing anything besides exploring different restaurants around Portland Pottery. One I would recommend would be “Forage”, which is direct across the street from the workshop. But overall, the field trip was very fun and I would definitely do it again!