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Elizabeth Raeburn
Raku Ceramicist

Elizabeth’s work is represented on the British Craft Council Selected Index, and in many public and private collections at home and abroad.

Her solo exhibitions include the Oxford Gallery, the Gallerie for Kalligraphie in Hamburg, the Dan Klein Gallerie, and four exhibitions at Galerie Besson, London.

She has been awarded prizes, both national and international; completed major commissions including a mural of Raku wall tiles for ‘Art for Life’ in Musgrove Park Hospital, Somerset, and taken part in major touring exhibitions. Her work is represented in public collections both here and abroad.

Since 1981 Elizabeth has specialised in Raku firing, making handbuilt sculptural pots. The pieces are taken out of the kiln with tongs while the glaze is in melt, and placed in sawdust or another combustible material, depending on the final effect required.

Even in well-controlled circumstances, the
firing of ceramics is unpredictable. Raku uses this unpredictability: the firing can be as creative as the making, and the surprise element adds a new dimension.

“I design and work slowly and carefully; the immediacy of the firing and the need to make quick decisions are in direct contrast. It is this balance, which for me brings the work to life.”

RAKU TECHNIQUE

Raku as a technique can be highly sophisticated or used very freely.  I prefer “informed freedom”, which can, with luck, produce extraordinary and surprising results, and a variety of colours and textures.

All these pieces are slab built, the bases being made from thick slabs for stability.

The pots are built from clay with kyanite added to prevent damage from thermal shock.  Sometimes colour, in the form of oxides, is added to the clay itself, and at other times the pieces are painted with slips. Some areas are waxed (resulting in the blackened clay), others covered in resist slip or glaze to achieve different surfaces
 
Colours

Slips: two base slips are used – white and garden (iron bearing) clay – to which are added varying amounts and combinations of oxides, mainly copper, cobalt and manganese.

Glazes: semi-transparent alkaline or borax glazes are used over slips; the ingredients of the glaze and the firing conditions define the final colours.  The colouring ingredient in the orange glaze is clay from our garden.

Firing: bisque temperature 990°; glost temperature 940°-980°.  Usually I fire in a small electric kiln, always with someone else who remembers (hopefully!)  to turn the power off while each piece is removed.  Sawdust, wood-shavings, shredded paper, grass or leaves may be used for post-firing reduction. 

Occasionally I fire in a reduction atmosphere in a gas kiln, which dramatically alters the glaze effects.

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