It was a scene like any holiday celebration in Hawaii: a group of people, gathered around glowing embers, enjoying a cookout.

But they weren’t grilling burgers and hot dogs. They were at the Raku Hoolaulea, the annual gathering held by the artist group Hawaii Craftsmen, where potters fire their works using the process known as raku.

More than 70 artists participated in the fiery celebration last weekend at Waimanalo Beach Park, with the best of their collective output now on display at the ARTS at Marks Garage.

Raku is a Japanese style of glazing pottery originally used to decorate bowls and platters for the traditional Japanese tea ceremony. It involves glazing a ceramic work, baking it in a kiln to about 1,800 degrees, then removing it while glowing hot.

Modern raku artists then place the work in a container with combustible material (local artists use a trash can filled with leaves or newspapers). The material bursts into flames and consumes the oxygen inside the container.

The process, known as "reduction," puts a "lustrous, metallic" finish on the glaze, said Jackie Mild Lau of Hawaii Craftsmen. "Any glaze that has copper in it, if we don’t reduce it, it’s green, and if we do, it looks kind of like a new penny," she said. "And it doesn’t always reduce evenly, which sometimes gives you a different gradation of color."

The public can try its hand at raku Friday at Hawaii Craftsmen’s Community Kiln at Marks Garage. For $5, participants can buy an unglazed tea bowl, glaze it and then have it fired.

Raku artists further accentuate their designs by introducing chemicals or other substances between the firing and reduction process. It’s an exhilarating but somewhat risky maneuver, so it will not be allowed at the Community Kiln, but the results can be stunning. Potter Ken Kang, for example, wrapped a vase in paper before reducing it.

"It’s kind of dangerous because it’s red-hot," he said.

The paper scorched, producing carbon, which congealed in cracks in the glaze and created a distinctive weblike pattern.

Kang, who has participated in every Raku Hoolaulea except the first one 35 years ago, got into raku because it is one of the easiest and fastest ways to fire a piece, taking only 30 minutes to an hour, he said. Other types of firing can take 10 hours.

Dustin Miyakawa, an art student at the University of Hawaii-Manoa, experienced a moment of despair, then excitement while creating his 2-foot-tall vase that he named "Sumo Ferric."

He planned to coat it with ferric chloride, an industrial compound. With only a few seconds to do the job before the vase cooled, Miyakawa nearly gave up when the piece fell in the nearby grass.

"I wanted to throw it away, but other people were saying, ‘No, go for it!’" he said. "We picked it up while it was, like, 1,500 degrees and sprayed it. All the grass got burned into it, and it actually gives it character."

"(Raku) such an unpredictable firing technique, you never know what’s going to happen," he said. "But that’s why it’s so cool."