To Raku or Not Raku

An e-mail from a friend came to me just recently about a one-day raku firing seminar that she thought I might be interested in. We were going to create our own raku kiln last year and I had created a small group of ocarinas out of raku clay just for the event. That never came to pass and my bisqued raku ocarinas laid fallow in a drawer in my studio basement for over a year. Ironically, the announcement about the raku seminar came to me just as I had come up with an alternative to glazing my ocarinas. Instead of doing a raku glaze, I made a raku-inspired faux glaze from acrylic and metal leaf interspersed with metallic dust. A good alternative if raku is a not do. I’ve featured my just finished set above.