Happiness in the Accident

Happiness in the Accident”
by Amy Mealey

** Chase your passion and the money will come **
**Chase money and you may never find your passion**
By Colin Wright

Amy Mealey received her degrees in Biology and Art in 1998.

To pass the time and ease stress she started doing pottery in her room.  She started getting successful and wanted to sell her products so got a business license and started attending farmers markets to sell her pottery.

She found her way to Salt Lake City and met Stan Roberts – the original owner of XAZ Pottery. She studied under Stan to learn and to gain a hands-on for 5 years.  When Stan retired, she arranged to purchase the company with the promise that she would keep his glazes secret ~ now his company lives on in Amy’s artistry.

She has relocated to Carlin, Nev which is about 7 hours east of San Francisco where she makes both beads and pottery.  The technique of beads is called RAKU: ra (as in ah) and ku (as in you). Raku, to Amy, is happiness in an accident through ease and tranquility. Raku has been credited to the Japanese who take really hot clay out of the kiln and air dry them. The United States method is to take the really hot clay pieces out of the oven/kiln, put them into an air tight container with newspapers, leaves, or other combustibles. When those things catch fire, they use of the air and the colors of the glazes appear.

You must take light diet when you intend to have sex. buy levitra line amerikabulteni.com During and after the period they often have anemia, general weakness, sour in waist and pain in legs and have insomnia and dreamful sleep, usually they are easy to discount pfizer viagra take and they are fast acting. Abortion: Artificial abortion is the main viagra no prescription cause of the problem. Individuals should take the erectile dysfunction medication at least half an hour before initiating sexual cialis price no prescription activity. The Japanese method is over 400 years old.  The growth and stability of raku has been attributed to the tea ceremony and Buddhism in Japan.  Murata Shuko has been credited with stabilizing the actual steps of the ceremony and he appreciated the individualism of the raku pottery when the glaze takes on its own life in the oven.   His students coined the term “wabi” means the avoidance of luxury.   Sen-no Rikyo has been deemed the greatest tea master and brought the ceremony back to using raku pottery. He preferred raku-yaki bowls made by a Korean family. They were so proficient that he bestowed the name “Raku” on their name. In the Japanese method of raku, lead is used in the glazes which can cause health issues but does give better colors.

Japanese Method: quick firing, red hot pots are air dried in sand. Mostly pots and tiles.

American Method: taken out red hot and cooled in water or in a sealed metal container. Pieces are burned with combustibles (leaves, sawdust, paper, pine needles) which uses up the oxygen causing the various glazes to change colors.

Amy took us into her studio showing the various stages she takes as she makes her pottery and beads. She uses porcelain clay. It is forced through a wall mounted extruder into a manageable tube and then each style is hand formed.  The bisque process is then heated to 1900°. She forms the beads around a stainless-steel mandrel, sprays them with specially formatted glazes and fires them in an electric kiln.  Her fire box is a large German artillery box.   The oxygen is burned up but the fire wants to keep going. The copper carbonate in the glaze causes the famous raku flash.  The end result is never the same ~ it is always an accident as it does its own thing color-wise.  Time and experimentation has taught her that using a smaller fire gives her better colors ~ but again….the end result is always unpredictable.  If no combustibles are used, the end result is a copper green. She doesn’t use the quick cool method buy plunging the items into water because this will also result in a copper green color.

Amy uses home made glazes which were formulated by Stan – especially “Stan’s Rust”.  If the items are large, she can make 40 per/run, if small items then 56 per/run. She starts working at 7am. It takes three hours to heat up to 1850° and 20-30 minutes per batch to melt the glazes.  The pieces spend 20-30 in the heat, 15 minutes for small items. She works 8 hours in the firing.  The process gives 200 beads per/hour and another 8 hours in the kiln…if she is in the mood but if she is not in the “mood”, the beads do NOT work out.

Raku is a specialized art.

If you want to learn how to make items with the raku method. Start by taking pottery classes.  It takes months of basic instruction and years of playing with glazes and techniques to find your own way.

By marilyn peters