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A word has come to light lately to describe the way in which words, thoughts and ideas are brought about throughout society.
The word “meme” refers to an idea that spreads through a social organization the way a virus spreads through a community.
Potters are like river otters, always eager to play so memes sweep easily through the pottery community.
A new idea takes hold of the potters imagination and suddenly it seems like everybody is excited and wants to do shino glazes, salt fuming or pit firing.
American style raku is a perfect example, one potter dropped a hot pot into a pile of vegetation and it turned black and before long everybody wanted to explore this exciting new way of playing with clay.
So many potters have become possessed by the raku meme that you can do raku all your life and never exhaust the possibilities.
Wheel thrown, low fire clay, burnished, bisque fired to cone 010, fired with horsehair and sprayed with ferric chloride.
A meme that recently started spreading is the technique of horsehair pottery, which is an off shoot of the raku meme.
Somebody accidentally found out that if you dropped horsehair onto a hot pot at just the right time it would leave a lovely frizzy black mark on the pot and everybody who sees it wants to try it.

OLD INDIAN TRICK!!

OK, here we go step by step!!

Burnishing Supplies:

To prepare the pottery for burnishing, it is first sanded with very fine sandpaper.



Next, douse the pottery with baby oil and rub it in.



The oiled pottery is then dampened with a wet cloth.



The final step is to rub the entire piece of pottery with a polished stone.
It is then bisque fired to Cone 010.



Place the bisque fired pottery and a Cone 010 witness cone in the raku kiln and prepare to light the kiln.



After twenty minutes or so, the cone has melted, go ahead and remove the hot pottery from the kiln.



The hot pottery is then set on a brick and you can place hairs one at a time onto the pot.
As the hair touches the hot pot it sizzles, filling the air with the smell of burning hair and leaving a squiggly black line on the pot.



You can pull a few final hairs from the bunch to finish decorating this pot.



You can spray the pottery with ferric chloride to turn it orange.
Be sure and wear safety gear such as gloves, safety glasses, and respirator.



Ferric chloride can be purchased in crystal form from a scientific supply company, but you can buy it ready mixed from Radio Shack.
Since ferric chloride is caustic and destroys metal nozzles he uses a disposable canned air cartridge attached to a cheap plastic spray bottle instead of an airbrush.



The pottery is finished and you can brush off the residue of charred hairs with a soft hake brush.

WARNING:

TIP

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Have you ever come up with a good idea while working with your handmade pottery or ceramics and thought that you would like to share it with others? You have? Well, why not send it to us and we will add it to the tips page for all to see.

Handmade pottery can be a very gratifying hobby that produces fun and satisfying results. For many people it's an enjoyable release that is created by working an inanimate mound of clay into a beautiful work of art that you made through your artistic abilities.

The best way of starting out is to take a few lessons. You will probably waste quite a bit in materials when you first get started. Figuring out how to truly make handmade pottery correctly and shape into what you want it to be can be quite an ordeal. The different tools that a normal shop will have can be fun to try. You will soon see which ones you like to use the most and then when you are ready you will know which ones to buy.

When you get all set up, just enjoy the hobby and have fun at it. Some people get pretty serious and start selling their creations at craft fairs and small stores, but others just like to create items for themselves, relatives, and friends. Whichever kind of handmade pottery you desire to endeavor, enjoy the hobby and have fun doing it.