Ken Ferguson raku teapot. Made for student Joyce Middleton at SIU Edwardsville circa 1971, when he came in to teach for a semester in replacement of another teacher on sabbatical. A similar piece was made for teacher Dan Anderson at the same time, and he describes the process as follows:

"Once the glaze melted it was grabbed from the natural gas raku fired kiln with metal tongs and put into a garbage can full of combustible material, then covered with a lid to create a heavy reduction atmosphere and it came out with a reddish copper lustrous surface. Over time, the luster wore off from the oxidation atmosphere of room temperature and left the bluish color. Some people have sprayed fixative over the lustrous copper red color to try to keep it from oxidizing."