Smoke wafted from behind room 310 last week. If you have been at HT either as a student or faculty member for more than a year, you would know that it’s that time of year again, and Mrs. Rodby is doing another raku firing with her Ceramics I students. Rumors for those not in my classes start flying because students think I am roasting “raccoons”!
The firing process that we know of as Raku was developed somewhere between the late 1300’s and the 1500’s (depending on whose history books you are reading) by Zen Buddhist Masters as part of their tea ceremony. This way of firing their pottery suited the Zen Masters because it exhibited the belief that all creation is beautiful – even the rough surfaces and glaze cracks that occur in the Raku firing process. The name Raku means enjoyment, contentment and pleasure.
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