A Visit to John Dodero
I have been playing with raku again. This is some of the work I fired during the last month. I visited Oregon a couple of months ago and had an opportunity to visit the studio of John Dodero in Jacksonville (you can see his work online). It is unusual to find a production potter who does exciting raku ceramic art. He makes a piece on the wheel and then uses this piece to create a plaster mold. Slip-casting allows him to do production raku work which he sells wholesale.
I was fascinated to see his studio set-up, work process, and his work. I purchased a beautiful and very unusual Shino piece from him – unfortunately, it did not survive the shipping. The featured piece on this post was inspired by his work. Two of the photos below show different views of the same piece…
New Directions for Raku
Now that I am back in Sedona, Arizona, I have been experimenting with both wax resist and tape masking on raku pieces. with was resist it is difficult to remove all the glaze from the resist, and with the tape, it is a challenge to get fluid lines and the uniform thickness of the lines is less natural looking. I continue to ponder this challenge.
The incorporation of wood and rock into my raku work presents interesting possibilities. I am considering incorporating semi-precious stones and/or crystals. The use of desert dried wood or cactus skeletons also is of interest. The featured piece uses manzanita from our yard.
I like the stable and colorful glazes of raku. They allow me to effectively use the masking technique for glaze application demonstrated on some these pieces. I continue to ponder the possibility to similar results with mid and high fire glazes. This would result in functional and durable pieces.
