Raku tea bowl: All four elements and the serendipity of smoke.

More about Raku tea bowl: All four elements and the serendipity of smoke.

In my youth I was a potter. I miss it. (My nickname was Mudpie because I wore a lot of the clay by the end of the day.)

Raku firing is an ancient Japanese ceramics technique that involves removing glazed pottery from the kiln while it's still red hot and placing it in a combustible material to cool. This technique is used to starve the piece of oxygen, which creates a myriad of colors within the glaze. In areas without glaze on them the oxygen is taken from the clay itself rather than a glaze, and results in matte black coloring. Every piece of pottery created this way is a unique product of the spontaneous elements of the firing. Because of this, Raku tea bowls are especially prized in the tea ceremony, and any imperfections are put on display during the ceremony.

The tea ceremony was founded in the 1500s by Sen no Rikyū, who stated that its purpose is to be present at the moment and realize that every moment only occurs once. His philosophy is known as ichi go ichi e, which roughly translates as "every moment occurs only once" or "cherish every moment" or "once in a lifetime" or "never again repeated or replicated"