Friday, June 8, 2012

OUTSIDE LOOKING IN

I know, at first glance you have to be wondering, what are you even looking at and am I that bad a photographer. While I will admit, I am not a great photog, but this picture was taken from the inside of a teabowl, the "underexposed" warning in full effect. What you are actually looking at is a porcelain teabowl, exceptionally thinly thrown, after which using a sharpened bamboo knife, I incised a design around the bowl which is then inlaid with black slip. In essence, you are looking at the design, through the wall of the translucent porcelain. The light source behind the bowl is sunlight coming in through the studio window. The exterior decoration is a precise thin lined representation of my "landscapeman" design. I thought it looked rather cool seeing the design reflected on the interior just like the outside looking in.

"Symbols are just symbols; the thing's the thing."  Howard Ogden (1940-2011)