The final temperature of 1,800°F in the kiln can be reached in 15 minutes. Photo by Father Theophan Mackey
When the glaze on the piece looks shiny like water it has “matured” and it’s ready to pull. Photo by Father Theophan Mackey
BY FATHER THEOPHAN MACKEY
St. Job of Pochaiv Orthodox Church
Los Alamos
A few weeks ago, for a friend’s birthday, we hosted a raku party and cook-out. It was pouring rain, which dampened the cook-out a bit, but also mitigated the effects of the heat during the raku firings.
“Raku” is a variation of a Japanese ceramic firing technique that consists of preheating ceramic pots, firing them quickly to glaze maturity, and then removing them from the kiln and placing them in a post-fire reduction vessel. Now, granted, that’s a lot to unpack.
Preheating the pots helps reduce thermal shock, the stress on the pot that comes from rapid expansion and contraction during heating and cooling. The pots are then placed in a hot kiln, sometimes beginning as hot as 400°F, and the heat is increased quickly. With a robust clay-body and a good preheat, the final temperature of 1,800°F can be reached in 15 minutes. But more important than temperature is “heat-work”, in essence, temperature plus time. In a regular kiln, in a regular slow firing, a pyrometric cone is used that softens and melts at a specific heat-work. In a raku firing the ceramicist watches for the glaze to first bubble (sinter) and then heal and smooth out. When the glaze looks shiny like water it has “matured” and it’s ready to pull.
Like most things in art and craft this process has a life analogy.
So many of the things we struggle with in life are beyond our control. Often, we feel out of our depth, like a clay pot engulfed in the swirling flames of the kiln. The heat increases to agonizing levels. And often there is nothing that we can actually do to change the situation. Sometimes we just need to make it through, minimize the damage, and attempt to keep a positive outlook.
While we are in the crucible, or kiln, of our stresses it is awful. Only the most spiritually advanced (or blind) can say that it is all good at that moment. Yes, all things work together for good… but while you’re in the fire, it burns, it hurts, it’s almost unbearable. Whether it is grief, anger, embarrassment, or pain, it is not good, and something to be avoided if possible.
But if we do hold on and make it through, something wonderful and unexpected can happen.
When the kiln reaches maturity, when the kiln and the pot are glowing a bright orange and the glaze has melted and healed over, clad (hopefully) in protective garments and armed with long tongs, the ceramicist opens the kiln and extracts the pot. It is then placed in a waiting vessel which is partially filled with sawdust, newspaper, pine needles, or some other combustible material. More of the material is added, and then, as it all bursts into flames, a lid is clamped down on it. It is so much fun to do this in the dark of evening!
In the post-firing reduction, the melted glazes, colored with metallic oxides, are robbed of some of their oxygen molecules by the combustible materials that are trying desperately to burn. Thus, the metallic oxides (copper, iron, etc.) “reduce” to their metallic components and the results are metal flashes of color.
Raku is almost completely unpredictable, but the results are often unique, random, and beautiful. But this is the same with our lives.
Sometimes just making it through is all we can do, and really, all that we must do. The results will be something we cannot see, something we cannot predict. We will be different people. But that is not necessarily a bad thing.