Raku kintsugi vessel

This is a unique item.

Height ~7cm, diameter ~8cm.

Do not put this item in the dishwasher or microwave.

My friend Ryan (of Ryan Barrett Ceramics) and I, hopped into his van on a rainy November morning, armed with a few buckets full of bisqued groggy stoneware, a gas kiln and a large cylinder of gas.

I mixed up a couple of glazes from scratch on the outdoor picnic table. I had never made any raku glazes before, but I studied their chemistry pretty intensely the evening before. I basically mixed up tiny ground up rocks and some colouring oxides to a special chemical (molar) concentration, added water and applied these on to the pots.

By eye and by light thermometer, we fired the glazes pots up to around 1000 degrees C, pulled them out (scorching our hands), chucked them in to a bin full of sawdust and closed the lid and waited for the reactions to happen.

I hope you enjoy these pots. Each one is unique.

The clay turns black in the crackles and in the unglazed areas due to the carbon. The clear crackle glaze appears white (due to the colour of the clay), and black where unglazed or crackles. The multicoloured pots are due to copper in the glaze, which gives different colours of red, green, black, blue and everything in between depending on its oxidation state.

PS. These pots are a labour of love, blood, sweat, tears and grass (the lawn may now have a big burned hole in it)