I'm finally getting around to adding text to these posts:My ceramics class took a field trip to a ceramics school near Certalda:
http://www.lameridiana.fi.it/
The place was totally amazing.
Out back. Look carefully for vineyards. This is Tuscany.
They fed us an amazing meal out front.
The front of the studio.
I should explain why we were there. You see, they have facilities for Raku firing. Raku is a process of firing ceramics that originally came from Japan (though has been modernized/Westernized considerably). Ceramic pieces are removed from the kiln while red hot (that's what's in the photo), and the rapid temperature change that they undergo causes the glaze to crackle. To play up the crackle, potters will put their red-hot pieces in something combustible (sawdust here). The ceramics promptly catch fire, are then covered by the sawdust, which creates smoke, which gets into the cracks in the glaze and turns them black. It can look really good.
