I really love these Raku Marbles but In order to find those treasures I have a lot of marbles that are not up to my standards to sell as collectable raku clay marbles. So I am experimenting if I can use them in landscaping. I have some visions of utilizing these for walkways or Japanese gardens. the metallic luster, greens and look seem to want to be in a natural setting.
So I wanted to test these in a harsh environment where temperatures plunge below zero and it gets over 100 degrees in summer. I figured my backyard was the perfect place to test these little marbels out. So I picked a tree that I have a swing hung from, near my fire pit where I enjoy laying in the shade in Summer, read and play with some of the paws we surround ourselves with in our dream fulfilled homestead here in Princeton, Minnesota.
So Last Summer I poured out glazed, unglazed and assorted beads, marbles and pendants around this cherished tree in my backyard.
This will be the second Winter this little experiment has enjoyed with minimal losses from the wonders and power of liquid when it freezes. If your a conservative you don’t believe in that foolishness of global warming, but for those soft of mind, I tell you that when water freezes it expands! That is why when the Goracle made that silly snake oil salesman pitch saying that tidal waves will engulf our coasts is a socialist silly squirrel. If our poles are melting that means that the water levels should fall.
If you don’t believe me, get your favorite beverage and two glasses. Fill both glasses with three ice cubes each. Now pour some water in one until the water and ice is exactly filled to the rim. Now fill the other glass with your favorite beverage and get a good book about agricultural old tyme technology and start sipping that beverage of choice.
When you get to page 10, check your glass of ice and water. What do you see? Well, give it some more time. Oh, if you are like me and only look mostly at pictures, then do this step at page 56.
Now after a short nap, after your beverage of your choice kicked in and your eye lids got to heavy, go back to that glass of now only water.
Do you see what I know you will? Yes, that Gore is a hell of a snake oil salesman but a real bastard scaring those kids that the polar bear is dying. Even that was a lie, they are thriving!
Well, the water level will dip from the rim down quite a bit. Not from drinking or even evaporation, but because the ice expands and displaces the water in your glass. Thus this is why at a bar or restaurant, you are given a hell of alot of ice in your beverage, not because they want your drink cold, but because it is cheaper to make ice then to sell you the product you thought you were buying.
Well, getting back to this experiment that I surrounded one of my favorite trees in my dream fulfilled homestead. It was a bloody success! I averaged about 6-12 marbles lost per winter. Honestly those that were split from the water expanding into them were really minimal and with a spring reshuffle they just found their way lower in the pile.
A bloody smashing success!
So how many yards of Raku Clay Marbles can I sell you?
If you want something truly unique and grandeous around your favorite tree in your backyard, your Japanese garden or garden path, you know where I am and how to contact me!
Having trouble selling a home in this market? I have never seen a home with a raku marble landscape element ever not sell!
Ok, I have never sold this house yet either, but I am sure it would be the element that seals the deal!
Try my Raku Clay tile as well!
Chad Everson
763-244-3265
grizzlygroundswell@chadeverson.com
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Here I am pulling out a bowl for a high school arts festival. Raku is a process of glaze firing a clay vessel.
The vessel is heated to 1850 degrees. It is pulled out red hot and glowing as the 1850 degree wall hits me as I open the kiln.
The vessel is taken out of the special raku kiln with metal tongs.
Then the vessel is placed in a container that has combustable material like leaves, straw or wood shavings.
The vessel still red hot combusts the material and the bed rages with fire licking and engulfing the vessel.
You can see here a high school student is assisting me. He is holding a lid filled with wood shavings that he will place on top of the little inferno. He will then swivel the lid locking it down in the sand below the combustibles.
This creates a reduction chamber where the fire that is consuming the combustibles thirsts and gasps for oxygen. Since the lid cuts off new atmospheric oxygen coming into the environment the fire looks everywhere for oxygen.
The glazes we use are metallic oxides in composition as well as silica. The fire actually pulls oxygen out of the metallic oxides in the glaze leaving behind metallic wonderous color!
Mostly copper is utilized so the color you see, the brillant reds, greens and metallic lusters derive from this great and immediate process.
I say immediate process because in a traditional clay glaze firing you have to take a day to load the kiln, a day to fire and a day or two to cool down. With Raku, you can not fire a whole great quanity at once, but you can bring the temperature up to 1850 degrees in 40-30 minutes, especially after the first firing. You can pull the peice out and have it cooled down, ready to take home in under an hour and a half.
If you have never seen a raku firing and would like to watch one let me know. I provide raku workshops for Individuals, groups, businesses and artists all the time. If you are having a mid life crisis or need some inspiration, raku is a process you need to experience. It is life changing and thrilling. The process informs team building and inspires any group to work together and think outside the box. Most of my customers thought they could never create art or anything of beauty. They were wrong, very wrong.
I make Raku clay tile, mosaic and beads. I think I am the only one in the world that creates raku clay marbles. You can work with me every step of the process from design to creation to firing of your tile project that will enrich your dwelling, your office or business and provide beauty that has your fingerprints all over it.
Contact me and we can dream it into a reality together.
Chad Everson
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Raku Clay Tiles are beautiful. The textures are intoxicating and the metallic raku glazes enrich any environment where they are installed.
I am gearing up to get back in my studio and create more tiles. I have a number of commercial tile size lines that I am working with.
If you are thinking of a tile project in your future stay in touch, send me measurements of your project and I can get you a bid on the project. Most sprinkle in Raku Clay tile throughout their design for drama and intermix them with commercial tile. I do not mind this at all, although a complete raku tile presentation is much more impressive.
I will try to share with you photo’s of the process and I am working on a good set of examples. Although with Raku glazes and this process each tile is unique and I usually make twice to three times the tile needed so that I can mix and max the tiles to have the most impressive presentation possible.
I create all my tile and can install it as well. Although you may not have the funds to fly me in to install them. A good tile contractor can install my tile as well for you and honestly, your project will make their year!
Raku is very specialized and they are not for floor areas with high traffic. Best used for wall presentation, kitchen backsplashes, dwelling rooms, offices, bathroom walls.
In fact my next project is my bathroom walls. This old house seems unworthy of such luxury but our stair riser project makes everyone who sees it just want to sit on the stairs and explore the textures and tiles.
I used left over tile for that project and just played with designs. It turned out very good and has a mosaic effect.
Some other products I create are mosaic elements, beads and I believe I am the sole creator of Raku marbles known to man.
I will bring you more photos of all of these as I get a chance.
God Bless and surround yourself with conservative beauty!
Chad Everson
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I have ignited imaginations of kids of all ages with clay and conservative thought. Now that my business, The Clay Empire concentrates more on Raku clay tile and mosaics and I have put my clay classes on hold, I need to liquidate my equipment so that I can found and create the E. W. Everson Institute. The Grizzly Groundswell is doing a great job uniting the conservative thought, voice and image and now we need to grow it. I need to find funds and in doing so, I need to liquidate unused equipment to keep this going.
My need to obtain funds means you get some really great deals!
I am selling the Brent IE pottery wheel pictured above during a Montessori class demonstration and below all set up and ready to get Grizzly with!
You can purchase this wheel and the one below at ebay.com follow this link Here!
This wheel is also for sale on ebay and you can purchase it by following this link! Here!
This is a heavy duty studio wheel that has the ability to rotate in both directions which is wonderful for students that are left or right handed. This wheel can hold much more clay and rotate it for some truly Grizzly pots!
My hen approves it!
My cat, Reagan loves it as well! It is not easy to part ways with these great tools but I need to fund the next Grizzly Groundswell ventures.
If you would like to donate to the Grizzly Groundswell cause of founding the E. W. Everson Institute and growing the Grizzly Groundswell’s ventures please email me at GrizzlyGroundswell@chadeverson.com or give me a call 763-244-3265
Thanks
Chad Everson
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This is the first time this year that I have had the chance to Raku! I am back in the saddle again! It has been way to long. This conservative activism is getting in the way with my love and passion for Raku! 
I had to get a Raku Marble commission completed and now I can clean them up and mail them off! They turned out so good, it is going to be hard to part with them. But the gentleman that commissioned them does this really interesting thing each year for his birthday. He finds an artist he likes and commissions one of a kind works of art then gives them to his Birthday guests. I just love that idea. So I am honored to be this years artist and since I am the only person in the world that does Raku fired clay marbles, his guests are getting something really special.
I also fired about 160 Grizzly Groundswell raku clay tiles. I was surprised I still had so many. So I am going to bring them to the www.samadamsalliance.org #Sammies award this Saturday where I am being awarded a Golden Sammie. I am so humbled but so excited to see some of my members and friends. I am so humbled by the whole experience so I am going to try to find 300 gifts for the expected attendees of this great event. I like giving something of myself to those people who come into my life. I guess that is what the Grizzly Groundswell is all about. Lifting each other up and 
interdependently taking back our backyard. It is going to be so much fun, I hope someday my Grizzly Groundswell will be big enough to do what the Sam Adams Alliance has done for me and my membership. Truly God has blessed me abundantly! 
