Japanese, literally, pleasure; from the use of the character for this word on a seal given to the family of the potter who introduced the style.

This beautiful pottery firing technique originated in Japan and can be used to create truly unique ceramics. The raku firing technique produces distinctive markings on the surface of the pots as they're fired, with different results every time. Its unpredictability is all part of the charm!

The Raku technique is essentially when glazed ceramics are taken from the kiln while they are still glowing red hot and are then placed in a material that would be able to catch fire, such as sawdust or newspaper. This technique is used to starve the piece of oxygen, which creates a myriad of colors within the glaze.

Typically, most artists price their raku and horse hair pottery on the high side. One of the major reasons for this is because of the high breakage rate and plain and simple the difficulty of getting good results with raku. The thermal shock on the ceramic vessel using these techniques is very high.