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Local artist to lecture on advanced ceramics
The Advocate
Kris Paul, a local ceramics artist, will hold workshops starting at 10 a.m. Saturday in the Visual Arts Gallery about a ceramics process she said she discovered by accident.
“It was a happy accident. I was trying to achieve Soldner’s halo effect and a firing didn’t work out but what did happen was Naked Raku,” Paul said. “It then took me about a year to discover that there was a technique to my happy accident. Artists actually practiced it and it had a name: Naked Raku.”
The workshop is sponsored by the MHCC Ceramics Club. Member Brenda Scott explained that usually raku exists of a lot of bright, metallic colors, but Paul’s work consists of black and white pieces.
“She’s the only one I know of in the area that does this process,” Scott said.
According to the website www.nakedraku.com, in Naked Raku the artist places a slip over the surface of a burnished piece of bisque fired pottery. Then a single coat of raku glaze is painted or poured over the slip. When firing, the kiln needs to be hot enough to begin to flux the glaze. The piece is then taken out of the kiln and put into a reduction chamber with combustibles, such as newspaper. The piece is then immersed in water, which causes the slip to fall off and leaving a soft crackle finish.
“We don’t generally do that kind of firing here,” said Scott, pointing out that most ceramics classes taught at MHCC are at the beginner level and this is an advanced technique. The workshop will not be a hands-on workshop, according to Scott, but it will be more of a lecture workshop with a demonstration of the firing process.
Paul said, “The morning lecture and presentation will cover the basics of the process. Recipes, firing schedules, techniques, examples of Naked Raku will be covered. A full handout will be provided. This is really a jumping-off point for the workshop attendees.”
The morning lecture will last from 10 a.m. until noon in the Visual Arts Gallery and is followed by an afternoon session in Room VA6 that will end at 4 p.m.
The presentation is free for MHCC students. Tickets can be purchased at the Visual Arts Gallery and are $25 for the general public and $15 for Oregon Potters Association members.
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