Collection: Claire Brown

My work reflects my love of wheel thrown forms and the beautiful natural surfaces of burnished Raku ceramics . I particularly love the variety achieved with Horse Hair, Saggar fired and Obvara Raku techniques which to me are reminiscent of stone or marble. Each piece is burnished several times before firing giving them their beautiful soft sheen and provides the background for the Raku surface techniques.

Horse hair Raku

This is a native American technique where a burnished pot is removed from the kiln or fire while hot and horse hair, feathers and sugar are applied to the surfaces in a very narrow window of time. They burn away leaving striking images of themselves on the surface.

Saggar fired Raku

An iron solution is applied to the surface then leaves, feathers, coffee, lemon slices, vitamin tablets (the list is endless and open to experimentation) are wrapped in foil with the pots which are placed in the Raku kiln. Once at the correct temperature the pots are removed and the oxygen in the atmosphere causes the surfaces to blush pink, white and red.

Obvara Raku

This involves dipping the hot pot into a fermenting yeast mixture which burns onto the surface in wonderful bubbling patterns and highlights any carved textures.

 The results connect me with the very first potters who, before glazes were developed had to make use of natural materials and hand burnishing to make their pots both decorative and functional.

Glazed stoneware

 My glazed stoneware too retains some of the free flowing abstract nature of Raku decoration using broad brush strokes and carefully applied splashes of colour to a neutral base, and is my interpretation of the wonderful pots of Chinese, Japanese and Korean ceramicists of the past.