Four Techniques...obvara, saggar, raku and carbon painting.


Clay...to which we add fire and smoke.


Simple Profiles...allow our fanciful surfaces show to their best advantage.


Magic Happens...the kiln is opened and we play on the glowing pieces with hair, feathers and chemicals.

One aspect of process that our work has in common is that, with the exception of saggar firing, all of the techniques require that the work is manipulated after the glowing piece is removed from the kiln. In the case of carbon painting, bare fingers skim the surface of 1000 degree pieces. This makes our work significantly different that most pottery where the work usually comes from the kiln in a complete state. It also give the work a certain immediacy in the decoration. This manipulation post firing is what makes each piece one-of-a-kind.

obvara

"Fermented ceramics is a 4-6 centuries old ceramics technology where the glass-like glaze enriched with metal oxides is replaced by rye-flour yeast."
The process starts out with a slurry that reminds one of stale beer and ends up smelling like a lovely LickinFlames bread.

saggar

"A SAGGAR is a fireclay container, usually oval or round, used to protect pottery from marking by flames and smoke during firing in a bottle oven."
Of course at LickinFlames we don't do anything like it was originally intended to be done.

carbon painting

Carbon Painting with feathers and horsehair are dramatic techniques. We use a variety of feathers but where LickinFlames gets the horsehair is just too cool.

raku

Raku in its Eastern form would be a simple technique, closely associated with Zen and tea ceremonies. However, this is not the same raku that we use at LickinFlames.