Tim Murphy

I have always enjoyed pottery and in the late seventies, I purchased a Raku tea set by the artist and Boise State University Professor, the late John Takahara and so began my true fascination with clay and especially Raku, but only as an admirer of the works of others. That changed in 2008 when my father-in-law (a mosaic artist) gave me a 25Lb bag of clay and told me to go play. During the first year, I hand-built my pots to get the feel for the clay and what it would and wouldn’t do and read everything about Raku, Saggar and Pit firing I could get my hands on. Fast forward to the present and the hobby has mutated into an obsession.

My focus is on Raku, Saggar, horsehair and pit-fired pottery. These techniques create heat-induced chemical reaction finishes by using organics and other materials most often without the use of traditional glazes. Materials include; sawdust, wood chips, straw, leaves, sea salt, copper carbonate, newspaper, Miracle-Gro, feathers, ferric chloride, horsehair, steel wool, copper wire and glaze.

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Raku is filled with glorious highs and devastating lows. The violence and heat the clay undergoes can create immediate gratification and glory in creation or catastrophic failure as your perfect pot cracks or shatters.  This may be best expressed by the late great potter Paul Soldner,