Hand and slab built clay raku torso by Tammy Vitale, full and hip detail.
She doesn’t have a name yet. She reminds me of moss and ferns and forest floor and the coloring of a certain type of agate. She’s listed under Mossy Agate in my files but that isn’t working – she hasn’t adopted the name – so I guess I’ll have to wait until She lets me know. I’m putting some amethyst crystals on her hip (across from all the color) and using agate beads with leaves and a feather for her belly button charm (depending on how much room I have. Maybe just feather and beads).
What you’re looking at in the pictures below are the pit and trash can I reduce in, and the car that shares under the shed space with me acting as a staging area for pieces ready to fire, and work gloves and tongs….those are the glazes torsos on the hood – giving no clue to what they will finally look like after their trial by fire (isn’t that the way with all of us? How trials by fire can bring out our often hidden but truely amazing beauty?!)
Dianne (guarding the fire pit here) and I spent about 4 hours in our raku session yesterday counting firing and after scrubbing. Because 
of rain the day before, all of my reduction material was pretty wet, so I didn’t get good blacking on the backs of 2 of the pieces, a fish and one of the torsos. We even put them in a 2nd time and it didn’t make a bit of difference. The fish turned out mediocre at best so after I scrubbed them and figured out they were indeed mediocre, I took after them with spray paint and plan to add some metalics and we’ll see how all that turns out.
I tried a new method where I put a broken shelf piece in front of the flame to more evenly distribute the fire around the pieces, and only used 5 lbs of pressure. But I didn’t really adjust my timing and so I think both pieces were a bit underfired….wouldn’t you know, the best one (Mossy Agate), I didn’t write down how I did the glazing! I could kick myself for that!
Anyways, torso Turtle Moon here has crackle but it isn’t very visible – 5 more minutes might have fixed that. 
Instead of being nice, she might have been spectacular. Such is raku. One never knows. I’m not sure if this is just because I don’t do it that much and am consequently still on my learning curve or if raku is just this volitile. I know some people now do it in an electric kiln, which gives you much more control over where you are in firing because of cones. But you know what? I love doing it the seat of the pants way. I still learn something new every time – mostly afterwards when I go on line to check out what I could have done differently.
I learned yesterday that you can use a solution of sugar water (no recipe given for % of sugar to water) to spray a piece when it’s finished and bake it in an oven (or back into the kiln at low heat for big pieces) to bring out the crackcle lines (the sugar carmelizes). Another method is to rub india ink into the cracks. I had boot black, so I used that for now. The crazing (crackle lines) is very small – but it’s definitely there. I also read that if you spray water on places you want to color as the piece comes out of the kiln, it oxidizes and creates a brighter color. And that for crazing you want the glaze to really mature (i.e., you definitely don’t want to underfire it).
So I learned a bunch of new things about rakuing in my back yard and got one spectacular piece out of the firing. What more could I ask for?
thought for the day: The only time we suffer is when we believe a thought that argues with what is. When the mind is perfectly clear, what is is what we want. Byron Katie, Loving What Is: Four questions that can change your life.
1 Comment
Tammy: Yours seem,s now to be the most uplifting site I vist on the web. Thank you for mossy agate.It says so clearly that our bodies are the earth, the earth our bodies.
Out here the Coast Guard is proposing militarization of the Great Lakes…… which means adding power-guns to all CG boats/ships….and doing target practice on zones called 'Safety Zones'!
I just met with a group of women to plan our testimony tomorrow in the county seat…. but I feel like weeping. It's as if we were to line up our childrean as a 'practice area' since these lakes are 70% of all our bodies who drink their waters. Nobody seems to GET this!
I am now right in the middle of my 'move' —a symbol that makes it very clear to me that I need to speak with truth….not speak from two places/ my truth and the politically wise postures.
Thank YOU for being!
Sara