All Fired Up

The 2009 All Fired Up fundraiser roared by last night. While attendance was lower than desired, the event was a lot of fun. If you missed it, you REALLY missed it. Clayworks took on a fairy tale appearance with the addition of thousands of Christmas lights. The whole place was transformed into a wonderland of friends, food, and art. Thanks to all the attendees, volunteers, and especially to Adrienne and Julie who really jump through hoops every year to create a great party and make it look easy.

With the silent auction, door prizes, music, food, beverages, desserts (yes, they deserve their own separate category!), and raku, things were hopping. Add to that the wild fun of the clay olympics and you will see how memorable the night was.

It was pretty warm, but at least us folks in the raku department didn't have to deal with inclement weather for a change. The raku went well and the pieces came out great. I'd like to give a big thanks to Nick, my raku partner-in-crime.

Directly following the big shindig, everyone pitched in and converted it back to a working clay studio in no time at all. It's an amazing transformation to witness.

A few of us late-nighters stayed and chatted for a while after everything was done. It was nice to relax and unwind a bit. There was talk of going to the Penguin, but that will have to be another time when we're all feeling a bit younger.

More pictures here, here, and here.

Raku final

It appears that we will NOT be doing a raku firing this Friday night. There is a lot going on downtown this weekend and it's probably not the best time to be doing it. There wasn't very much interest in it anyway.

We will try another time as schedules permit.

Stay tuned...

Raku

We have only four days left before the proposed raku date and I have only heard one 'nay' and one 'aye' (both of them off the blog). Is anyone else interested or not interested? Is anyone actually reading this blog any longer? Don't be shy about voicing your opinion. This is our blog.

Please let me know.

New raku date?

Is anybody up for a "traditional (Clayworks)" raku on Friday, February 27th?

Please post and let me know who's interested.

Thanks.

Raku on hold & barrel firing

Saturday, February 21st has not turned out to be a good day for raku. We will have to reschedule for another time.

I believe the barrel firing is still taking place on that day, after 4:30 pm.

Raku recap

Thanks to all who came out and helped with the raku firing on Saturday. It was pretty much a success with some of the pieces turning out absolutely amazing. As far as the "new process" is concerned, I think we may have some more homework to do on that front. We can't expect to be great at it the first (or maybe even the second) time out.

In case anyone wants to see what we were working towards, here's a link to Bruce Odell's video.

Thanks, again for coming out and let's see if we can't schedule another raku on the 21st (2/21/09). Anyone up for that? If we don't do the alcohol/sawdust method, we could schedule one for Friday night (2/20/09) instead.

As always, let me know what you think. This is supposed to be a group project.

Saturday raku

It looks like we're on for a Saturday afternoon raku and the weather looks great.

We're looking forward to trying some new processes in this firing so it should be exciting (isn't it always?) and will probably yield some happy accidents along the way.

One thing we need to mention is that this is not a Clayworks class firing and is not funded by the studio. People (mostly nontoxic) have put out some time and funds for fuel, copper wash, and alcohol for spraying so there will be a donations bucket.

Please donate and have fun.

Raku?

Is anyone interested in a raku on Saturday, February 7, 2009 at ~10:00 a.m. (or whatever time works for everyone)? I have added it to the calendar as a possibility. Please let us know by leaving comments on this post so we know what the interest level is.