Similarities Between Creating a Raku Ware and Life

The first ware is more of an attempt. You prefer to smash the clay back into its original ball and start again. This time you take care. Too much. So much that the bowl's walls weaken and hold together by sheer willpower. It would be a miracle if they survived the transfer to the kiln.

Last modified: December 4, 2025

Swallow the Bitterness, Son, and Start Again

When the instructor asks if you'd like to start over after the second attempt, you don't want to. You put so much into that bowl!

You swallow the bitterness and within a minute you pound out a bowl that in your eyes is perfect. In the third attempt, you capitalize on previous failures. By not clinging to the perfection of the second bowl (though unusable), you create the third bowl. Without the previous failures, it wouldn't have come to be. It's not perfect, but it has a piece of authentic beauty in it.

Since you created it quickly, you can make one more. The fourth, created in another minute, looks similar to the third.

Touch

While working on the bowl, you realize how pleasant it is to touch the cold, wet clay. Your fingers, accustomed to pounding on a keyboard, now play with pressure, smoothing, squeezing... There's almost an intimacy to it. And practicality. Under your hands, something emerges that you'll (hopefully) actually use.

You don't add any handles, feet... On the contrary, it's important that in its simplicity it fulfills its function to the maximum: that it fits into your palms and when placed on a table stands (stably).

The Firing Kiln

The resulting bowl is vulnerable, any show of force deforms it. It doesn't hold its shape. Only through passage by fire does it gain strength, simultaneously fragility.

Loss of Control

After firing, the hot vessel is placed into wet leaves and sawdust, which react with the glaze, imprinting their structure into it. If you had control over creation until now, here comes the part where you let go. Nature enters the game. The choice of glaze color has an influence, but depending on many variables, the final appearance will change.

First Tea

The bowl is heavy, sits nicely in your palm. After the first tea drinking though, you know you won't use it for tea. When bringing the bowl to your lips, it bothers you that the vessel's walls are too thick (not that the instructor didn't warn about this during the workshop). A few times you even scrape your teeth against the walls. It reminds you of when you were little, standing on the porch, mom giving you a drink and you bit through the glass...

Eventually you fill the bowl with baking soda and use it for dripping essential oils (see article, where I discuss this use). While writing this article, you have it by the keyboard and inhale the scent of oregano. The second vessel you use for burning palo santo or sage.

What Actually Is This Raku Ware?

What actually is this raku bowl? I won't reinvent the wheel and will copy here a quote from the invitation to the workshop that was organized by the Regional Library in Pardubice.

"Creating a hand-pulled raku tea ware – a two-phase workshop led by the author of the exhibition Memory of Clay Marcela Pospíšilová.

Raku ceramics is a traditional Japanese pottery firing technique that originated in the 16th century and was originally connected with the tea ceremony. It is characterized by the ceramic being rapidly cooled after removal from the kiln – often placed into sawdust, leaves, straw, or water. This process creates very striking, often irregular color effects and cracks (so-called crackle glaze) on the surface."