When the Raku Ho‘olaule‘a was founded in the mid-1970s, its members were mostly hippies, in their 20s, looking for trippy new ways to fire pottery. Decades later the event’s enthusiasts have aged and mellowed and thinned in numbers, acknowledged spokeswoman Susan Rogers-Aregger, yet a core group of supporters is trying to reinvigorate this communal ceramics camp.
Its members spent Memorial Day weekend at Camp Mokule‘ia on the North Shore firing all sorts of clay objects, from small tea bowls to dog sculptures, and the collective is exhibiting that work through June 27 at The ARTS at Marks Garage in Chinatown. Part of the goal of the gallery show is to build momentum for next year’s firing event, which will celebrate the organization’s 40th anniversary.
Raku techniques were created in the mid-1500s in Japan, according to the Raku Museum in Kyoto. The term, which originally referred to an era, a place and a family of Japanese artisans, now serves as a catchall for various reduction-firing techniques, Eastern and Western, plus related approaches involving pits, horsehair and saggars, containers that protect pieces during firing. Smoke and glaze in this process creates the decorative patterns, often unpredictably, and the kiln work and cooling happen fast, providing relatively quick results. The best of show this year was a tile mural with a turtle theme, crafted by Leihulu Greene.
While raku groups have formed throughout the world, the Hawaii version has gained recognition for its unique beach setting and the fellowship fostered by its annual four-day workshop. The volunteer organizers bring about 15 kilns and all of the accessories needed to fire the pottery, including the sawdust, wood and glazes. The workshop’s popularity and longevity have meant people have grown up with it, so those in their teens, 20s and 30s when it started now are in their 50s, 60s and 70s. Rogers-Aregger’s subgroup of local potters jokingly nicknamed itself the “burnouts,” as a nod to the fire-filled craft and to the weariness caused by maintaining an event, with its ups and downs, for so long.
The hoolaulea’s home for the first 27 years was at Kualoa Beach before it was bounced to Waimanalo Beach, where it spent five years before moving again to Camp Mokule‘ia. Last year the workshop coincided with a major rainstorm, but that was just the latest of the blows to the workshop. At its height of popularity, in the 1990s, the event attracted more than 200 people to its firings. This year the group had about 60 participants, including Ken Kang, who has attended most years and will serve as the juror next year.
“Us old-timers are always out there, always enjoying it, but it almost feels like a fad now, and a fad comes and goes,” Kang said. “There’s not a lot of new blood coming in.”
Rogers-Aregger said the group had no college students participating this year, for the first time in the event’s history, and no matter which date they have considered as alternatives to Memorial Day weekend, from May to August, Oahu simply seems packed every weekend with competing activities. As just one comparison, more than 6,000 floating lanterns were launched this year at Ala Moana Beach on Memorial Day, in an event attended by about 50,000 people, when the raku group was firing pottery on the other side of the island.
“It’s just the times,” Rogers-Aregger said. “People still really love (the workshop), when they hear about it and try it. … But we might have to reinvent it, maybe as a one-day event, if we can’t get more participants. It’s a lot of work, a lot of physical work, and we’re all getting old and tired.”
