GALLERY: Creativity burning through in raku pottery
By Kate Hayden, khayden@charlescitypress.com
Monday’s pottery class felt more like a barbecue party than a school assignment. As the temperature rose to a high of 72 in Charles City, Brian Bohlen’s high school students were in high spirits while borrowing retired department teacher Art Strong’s personal kiln.
Bohlen has been bringing pottery students to Strong’s home studio for the last 10 years during his unit on raku and horsehair pottery. This was the first year Bohlen has had enough students to bring two groups out to Strong’s property.
“The kiln I have at school, we can do two or three projects at a time, and this one we can do seven or eight. It allows us to really take our time, spend the day and see how things turn out instead of trying to cram all of these firings into one period at school,” Bohlen said.
Strong retired from teaching art at the Charles City High School in 2002, when Bohlen, his former student, took over the position. Strong spends the whole day with Bohlen and his students explaining how raku is done, and monitoring their work as they pull pots out of the kiln.
“It’s nice to come over here in the spring, after the kids have had a year worth of pottery class to refine their skills,” Bohlen said. “We bring some of their best stuff over here when it gets nice enough to do some firings outside.”
Strong has done raku pottery for 20 years.
“Raku is more of a decorative deal. You don’t use it for drinking out of, because it’s not heated as hot,” Strong said. “It’s a difficult thing to do in a classroom because it’s labor-intensive. It takes hours.”
Raku-fired pots are fired in a kiln at 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit for 30 minutes, Strong said. While the pots were still hot, students use tongs to transfer the pots from kiln to paper-lined metal barrels.
“When the barrels light on fire, it causes carbon. The carbon lands on the pot, and the pot turns black. The glaze cracks and gives a nice crackling,” Strong said.
Some students used painter’s tape to create designs on the pot’s surface before glazing the pot. Once fired, the unglazed surfaces burned to black, offering a matte background to the shimmery glaze designs.
“The one thing about raku is that it is very unknown and spontaneous. You put it in the barrel and it may do something really cool or it may do something not-so-cool. That’s part of the raku experience,” Strong said.
Horsehair-treated pots are taken straight from the kiln and have natural horsehair applied to the unglazed pot’s hot surface. Strong gets horses’ tail hair from friends who own the animals.
“It has to be horsehair. We haven’t had any luck with human hair or anything else. It’s just too thin,” Strong said. “[Friends] know that I need it, so when they comb tails they bring it here.”
As the school year ends, high school students will still be finishing some raku and painting projects at Bohlen’s classrooms.
“Unfortunately some of those bigger projects — we’re past the art show, so those won’t get in, but we’re still working hard,” Bohlen said.
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