05/10/2026
People have been making pottery for millennia, and all over the world they developed different methods for changing the clay under their feet into beautiful vessels that helped them survive. This post is about a method called obvara that comes to us from Eastern Europe.
Here’s the process. You start with a bisqued pot, meaning one that has been fired at a temperature hot enough to make the pot solid but still kind of absorbent. Three days before your raku firing day, you mix up a brew of water, yeast, flour, and sugar. Stir it a couple times a day as it ferments.
How did they even come up with this method?!
On raku day, you heat the piece in the raku kiln until it’s nice and lava-hot. Take it out with your big ol’ tongs then dip it—once, twice, however many times—in the obvara brew. The fermented liquid scalds onto the pot like some arcane blessing. A quick dip in cool water locks in the burn marks for the next couple of millennia.
Yesterday was one of those wondrous days that reminded me of why I need to get out of my introvert cocoon from time to time. It was raku day for members of the Blacksburg YMCA pottery studio. In addition to the more traditional raku finishes (metallic glazes and “naked raku,” with organic materials like feathers and horse hair singed onto the lava-hot pots), a lot of members tried the obvara method.
The results were astonishing. My mind is still in awe-struck wonder at the complexity and beauty of the pieces on our display table at the end.
More than that, my heart is still full because of this community of oddballs who pooled their time, talent, resources and snacks on a beautiful Saturday making magic on a farm outside of Blacksburg.
