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Stories from the global community
Come along on the journey!
Day 77: Playing with Fire in San Diego
Destination:
San Diego, CA
San Diego is a city in Southern California on the coast of the Pacific Ocean, approximately 120 miles south of Los Angeles and immediately adjacent to the border with Mexico. San Diego is known for its beautiful weather, lush flowers and exotic trees, pristine beaches and friendly people.
In San Diego, the summers are short, warm, arid, and clear and the winters are long, cool, and partly cloudy. Over the course of the year, the temperature typically varies from 50°F to 77°F and is rarely below 44°F or above 84°F.
Fun Facts:
San Diego County has the most small farms of any US county and produces the most avocados. With Mexico so close, guacamole is a favorite!
Theodor Geisel, aka Dr. Seuss, was one of La Jolla's most prominent residents; as was Dr. Jonas Salk, who created the first successful polio vaccine in 1955.
Torrey Pines State Natural Reserve in San Diego is one of only two places the rare Torrey pine tree grows.
Art Form: Raku Spiritual Keepsakes
Each of these lovely ceramic art pieces is made by hand with love by Raku Potteryworks. They make beautiful spiritual keepsakes in the form of dream jars, mini fetish jars, wall hangings, coasters, and heart stones.
Each hand thrown raku mini fetish jar and dream jar is adorned with a unique lid or a twig handle wrapped in copper wire and assorted gemstones. The larger dream jars include a paper scroll inside for writing your dream.
Dreamcatchers are made with a crackle image, copper adornment and with a rod and copper loop for hanging.
Heart stones come in multi-colored copper matte, copper gloss, and crackle glazes. Heart stones include gemstone decoration and come with an organza gift bag and story card.
These raku pottery pieces make wonderful gifts for yourself or a loved one, adding beauty and meaning to any home or workspace.
The Raku Process
Each piece of Potteryworks ceramics
is made using a special firing process called
raku, which is dynamic and produces beautiful coloration and surface textures on the artwork. The art piece is fired in a kiln to 2000°F. It is then pulled red hot from the kiln and plunged into a tub with paper or a sand pit with wood shavings. The red hot vessel causes the combustible materials to ignite.
After the flames reach their maximum height, the inferno is covered with a metal lid. The unique manner in which the fire burns each time creates the splashing of colors from the copper glaze on the raku art piece.
The intense change in temperature
from the red hot kiln to the outdoor atmosphere shocks the glaze, causing cracks. The smoke penetrates any unpainted parts of the ceramic art, turning it black. The black lines in the crackle are from the smoke penetrating the fissures in the transparent glaze.
Due to varying conditions of the raku process, each piece is unique. Colors may include copper, blue, silver, gold, magenta, green and brown. Any variation on the surface of a raku piece such as cracks, specks, or pin holes in the glaze add to the character and uniqueness of the art piece. Copper used in the matte raku glaze may react with the atmosphere over time, slowly turning green. These pieces should be kept in a dry environment and out of direct sunlight.
This short video is an excellent introduction to the raku firing process.
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Firing Raku Copper Matte by John Kellum |
The Company and Artist:
Raku Potteryworks and Jeremy Diller
Located in San Diego in Southern California, founder of Raku Potteryworks and artist Jeremy Diller muses about his artwork:
"I am inspired by the beauty in nature from the hummingbird that visits my backyard in the mornings or the dragonflies that zoom about as I walk by the lake. I love to combine the brilliant colors of raku with items found in nature, such as turquoise, feathers, fallen branches and crystals. I feel so blessed to be making art for a living and to work with clay and fire every day."
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Shopping . . .
Are you ready to explore
what we have in our store?
The serendipitous nature of Raku makes each piece, no matter the size, a one-of-a-kind work of art.
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Don't forget to stamp your Passport!
Click on the
"stamp" to add to your "passport."
We keep track of your stamps for you!
"Collect" at least 12 different "country" stamps during the fourth 20 days of our around-the-world trip to
be entered
into the drawing for a $25 gift card.
Only 3 more days to complete your stamps
between days 60 and 80!
At the end of our 80-day
Around the World
excursion, all eligible travelers (minimum of 48 country stamps)
will be
entered into a drawing for . . .
a Grand Prize
$100 shopping spree gift card!
Thanks for traveling with us today.
Where to next? Stay tuned!
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One of the things I love about raku ceramic art is the spontaneous, risk-taking nature of the process. With each firing the clay artist lifts the red-hot pieces from the kiln and plunges them into the combustible materials (paper, wood shavings, straw, leaves). He or she watches the fire grow and then chooses the moment in time to quickly squelch that fire with a lid. The results might be fantastic or result in a broken, fractured piece. But it is also the also the only way to create these most amazing works of art. Risk-taking. There's many lessons here. Have an amazing day!
Our online store is, of course, open 24 hours a day. Our Brookside store is CLOSED today (Monday) through Wednesday until 4:00 pm.
Our VIP Preview Sale for Sidewalk Days will be on Wednesday from 4:00 to 6:00.
Plan to join us on the sidewalk to get first choice at all the great discounts of 50 to 75% off! Masks will be required both outside and inside the store. See more details below.
Our current hours are posted below my signature. We look forward to seeing you!
For those of you who cannot or choose not to shop in our Brookside store right now, we thank you for your continued online shopping support.
And I can't say it enough times -
YOU are an important part of what makes World's Window so special! THANK YOU!
World's Window
"Nobody can define you like you."
P.S.
We are glad to be on this around-the-world virtual journey with you and delighted that you are traveling with us. We hope you are learning some new information as we travel along.
If you haven't already done so, invite some friends to come along! There's still room on this journey!
Send an invite
P.P.S.
We're keeping our trip "log" up to date. If you think you've missed a day or are new to our journey, click
here
to review where we've visited the last 76 days.
CLOSED Monday and Tuesday
CLOSED Wednesday until 4 pm
OPEN Wednesday, 4 to 6 pm for VIP Preview Sale
OPEN Thursday through Saturday, 10 am - 6 pm
Sunday, 12 noon to 5 pm
As always we are "sharing the world" through clothing, jewelry, folk art, textiles and hand-selected gifts -
and
buying locally-owned is a gift to your community!
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Mark your calendar!!
Come to our VIP Preview Sale -
Wednesday, July 8 from 4 to 6 pm
Beat the Thursday crowds for first choices on discounts of
50 - 75% off!
Masks required both outside and inside our store.
Hand sanitizer available.
(for more details about these events, click on the poster above)
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A gift card is always a perfect gift.
We have 2 options for
World's Window gift cards.
In-store gift cards can also be purchased by calling
us at 816-361-2500.
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See what's happening on our social sites:
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