POTTERY

Raku/Horsehair Pottery

A prolific and technically masterful potter, Bruce was educated at both UW-Eau Claire and UW-Superior where he received his M.A. with an emphasis in clay. After 33 years of teaching high school art classes in Rice Lake, WI, he retired in 2002 and built his own clay studio. His intrigue of raku pottery has grown as he continues to experiment with different glazes with the combination of horsehair in his work.

This type of pottery combines the 400 year old Japanese process of Raku pottery with the Southwest art of decorating pots with horsehair. The individual pot is removed from a red hot kiln at 1900 degrees and placed top first in a reduction pit of sawdust. When the pot cools some, individual strands of horsehair are laid on the surface of the piece. The black lines you see are carbon trails left from the burning horsehair. Not to be used as functional, food safe pottery. Will not hold water.