Raku
The Japanese word raku is freely interpreted as “enjoyment”. It was an ideograph engraved on a gold seal and given by the ruler Hideyoshi to Chojiro in 1598, raku thereby became his family title. Chojiro is credited with being the first to produce, in 1580, a low-fired glazed pottery by a direct process which involved putting pots into and taking them out of a red hot kiln.

The raku process gives the potter control of colorful expression when subjecting pots to oxidations and reductions during their cooling. The openness of the clay body and the soft nature of the glaze enable subtle variations of color to be achieved. Originally only oxidation was used following neutral firing. Reduction was introduced in the mid 20th century by Paul Soldner in the USA. The use of the term raku is sometimes widened to include low temperature treatments involving reduction and smoke.

Popular modern raku is often recognized by a velvety black body contrasted with black-stained crackle of white, yellow, blue and turquoise glazes some with lustrous glints of reduced copper red. Glazes are often poured so that they overlap and integrate but leave areas of unglazed black body as important shapes in the composition. The direct handling of live flame fires the pyromaniac imagination to excitement. Some results are disastrous, others magical. It is the gamble that appeals to an artists emotions more than the rational intellect it teaches us what to recognize as "life" in a pot, the criterion that all art should have.