QUICK POST, SIMPLE POT

Quick post, simple pot. Illustrated is a simple, paddled yunomi that was part of a group of eight. Five were teamed up and sent out as a set, one is kind of marginal and of the other two, this was the best one. As you can surmise, this was thrown out of stoneware and then paddled and tooled, once bisque it was glazed in my Oribe base and had two other glazes added. This is not the greatest yunomi ever made but it has some volume and feels good in the hand and as a potter, maybe that is the general expectation along with a sense of accomplishment when someone besides my wife responds well to the piece.

CLAY & COSMOS

My relationship with time did not begin at the potter’s wheel, nor did it mature through the inevitable and unstoppable tick of standard clocks. It was formed, even forged years earlier, fed on a steady diet of vintage science fiction and the sweeping, cosmic geometry of Carl Sagan. Watching Cosmos, I learned to see the universe not as a static backdrop, but as an ancient, unfolding tapestry where entropy and gravity are constants. Sagan helped give me this sense of deep time, a perspective where human history is reduced to a microscopic speck on a cosmic calendar, and where millions of years represent the smallest, most casual fraction of our vast universe. It is an overwhelming realization, one that shifts your gaze from the horizon directly in front of you to the absurd and incomprehensible infinite. Yet, paradoxically, it is this exact sense of cosmic scale that guides my hands when they are slick with slurry, throwing clay on a spinning wheel working in a studio where decades old music lingers or choices made to enhance our environment with “new” pots.   

When you look at the archeological record, there is a seismic shift that occurred in what amounts to a literal blink of a cosmic eye: the transition from actual stone to the fired vessel. Suddenly, we learned to shape the earth and trap fire for ritual, necessity and the promise of tomorrow, we turned raw clay into functional form. In the grand timeline of reality, this monumental leap happened in a flash as it bridges the gap between primitive survival and conscious creation, transforming chaotic geology into deliberate geometry, form and vessel.   

This forces an existential question, what is time to us as curators, and what is time to a pot? We treat these vessels with immense care, even reverence, displaying them caring for them and treating them as precious markers of our own time and contemporary culture yet our stewardship is inherently fleeting. The pot itself exists on an entirely different metaphysical plane. Once formed and fired, the intense heat vitrifies the clay, freezing its trapped silica matrix into a durable, glassy structure rendering a pot immortal in terms of time if not animation. That matrix does not share our mortality, long after the flesh has returned to dust, long after our current empires have dissolved into myth and forgotten with a whisper reminiscent of Shelly’s “Ozymandias”, that silica matrix, the form, the structure will remain. It will survive for millions of years, a nearly indestructible relic waiting silently in the dirt and subject only to geological upheavals.   

Surrounded by the quiet rhythm of the passing seasons, I often find myself drifting, contemplating our place in this web of recycled matter where the truth of the philosopher kings, Crosby, Stills & Nash* anthem echoes deeply: “We are stardust, we are golden, we are billion-year-old carbon.” The very atoms that comprise my hands, the carbon molecules in my bones, all of the necessary minerals waiting in the clay bed were all baked/ forged in the hearts of dying stars eons ago finding their way into something new, some momentary and some destined for some sense of longevity. Simply put, pottery is simply the act of one form of stardust reshaping another.    

Ultimately, we must accept a humbling and yet, inescapable truth: we will have these objects for only a very, very brief moment in time, we will never truly own the pots we collect, nor the one’s we make as potters but there is a hint of immortality in that making. We are merely temporary guardians, passing them through our brief flash of consciousness. We hold them for an afternoon, a decade, perhaps a lifetime, before passing them along to the deep future, a future where the pot will endure, keeping watch over a universe that is in reality just beginning.     

On a lighter note, here is something new(ish) from Bizen potter, Baba Takashi, an Oni-Shino guinomi. Though this fits broadly under the specter of Tsukigata’s Oni-Shino, I think it is safe to safe it falls within the general parameters of how I look at this specific surface. The form is simple enough with a strong wari-kodai and an interplay between feldspar, ash and iron the three requisite components of any Oni-Shino surface. As I mentioned, Baba is probably best known for his Kuro-Bizen with flourishes and highlights of cobalt across the surface adding a unique perspective to modern Bizen and this Oni-Shino work adds another avenue of pursuit for the innovative Okayama Prefecture native. Given the lead in to this guinomi, I wonder where this piece will be in 25, 100 or a thousand years, curious minds and all that. 

(* I realize Joni Mitchell wrote WOODSTOCK but I prefer Crosby, Stills & Nash)

M3 MOMIJI

With a slight nudge from AI tech, here is a Tamaoki Yasuo Shino hanaire, circa 1993 displayed in my mind’s museum. At first glance, this may seem an odd choice, going with this more decorative piece as opposed to his pots with large, undulating bands of contrasting glaze and texture but that is exactly why I choose this piece. Rather than relying on his banded pieces or his pots with sharp geometric patterning, Tamaoki infused this vase form with a rich Rimpa meets Nihonga narrative, reminiscent of Kenzan and Hoiitsu’s two-dimensional imagery of several centuries earlier. Using a strong and even idiosyncratic form, Tamaoki has made excellent use of both the available positive and negative space to lay out a rich ethereal landscape painted in the round where the mind can make any number of associations depending on the viewer.        

This vase was exhibited in 1993 and stands as a near perfect example of Tamaoki’s oeuvre where the vivid, purposeful color scheme is achieved through in this case, technical mastery of the technique which though is quite simple, there are complexities to this innovative use. I mentioned the near perfect technique; I focus on this in particular as the pot was fired in such a way that the entirety benefited from the kiln atmosphere where the surface is even all around. Though not uncommon, every aspect of this pot, from form, glazing, decoration and firing all had to come out just perfectly to create this vase as worthy an object as I can imagine, in my mind or in reality, where the museum is the final reservoirs of (such) human creativity.

LONESOME

Illustrated is a temmoku and iron glazed yunomi, this was fired entirely on its own, a lonesome piece in my kiln after the complete over-haul and in retrospect, I should have fired a slightly larger piece, maybe with a lid to fully vet the firing temperature. Over the years I have replaced elements a number of times but this one was complete including elements, all the wiring, the switches and the cone sitter. This was the second, almost empty firing and it is that last part that concerned me most as I didn’t want the kiln to run away and overfire based on how the claw and plate to the sitter were adjusted. This is where this small yunomi comes in, elevated to about the middle of the kiln space, this was fired on a large piece of broken shelf and a soft brick plinth in case the glaze ran off the piece. As luck would have it, though it got just a bit hot, now adjusted, the yunomi came out about how I expected, no running and perfect without any issues, just another typical form and surface here at Albedo 3 Studio.

WELL, THAT WAS FUN

This is not really pottery related but I will say it effected my ability to surf around, post and look at pots for a while starting last Friday. Though I will not mention the specifics, after a “scheduled update” one of the large anti-virus services that we have installed, everything on the computer just went haywire, the very definition of; “well, that was fun”. The problem was that we were signed out of all of our various accounts and couldn’t log back in, webpages would or wouldn’t load or reload depending on their mood and in this melee of swearing, desk pounding and resignation things just got worse. We did literally everything we could do to try to mitigate this issue including searching out viruses, malware, file corruptions, etc. and went so far as to reinstall the OS. Nothing solved the issue.       

After three days we threw in the towel and paid for a one-time incident support from our PC’s manufacturer. The appointed time arrived and of course because of our computer issues, making contact with the support technician became a Three Stooges routine through no fault on the techs end. He was polite, very knowledgeable and after assuming control of our PC started checking through just about every possible corner of the hardware and software and checked into the deepest oubliette, seemingly buried beneath the flotsam and jetsam of years of internet browsing and use. Since you read the beginning (?) of this post, you can probably surmise that it was not a file corruption, nor malware or virus, not a hardware issue either as we suspected but rather was the routine “scheduled update” from the anti-virus that threw havoc into our digital realm. With the help of the tech who reconfigured this and that, here and there, cleaned out places we didn’t know existed, the computer is now back to normal if that is a thing, having expended the third of its nine lives or is that just cats? 

As a way to tie this back to pottery, illustrated is a Ko-Mino mizusashi by Ando Hidetake. This is neither my photo or my pot and truthfully, in general it is a bit more formal than I prefer but this piece really works for me. The facets are just irregular enough and the neck/ mouth add some movement as well and the lid just looks like it is resting and waiting to be picked up. The lugs seem just right for this form and the contrast of the yellow toned glaze and the natural ash across the base just all work in tandem to create a rather attractive and appealing pot. Now I just need to figure out how to get it here.

CO-EXISTENCE

This Echizen chaire was made Ban Kojiro and is a classic study in the quiet and graceful nature of wood fired pottery. It stands not as a fussy and overthought object, but as a singular encounter between potter, clay and fire. The form is a stout, rounded katatsuki (shouldered) shape where the transition from the body to the neck is gentle, creating a silhouette that feels natural having the presence of earth determined to become vessel.       

The surface is where Kojiro’s knowledge of firing and kiln becomes quite evident where in the Echizen tradition, the pot is submitted to the fire sans glaze. The results of a calculated battle between heat and flame yields an all-natural ash glaze, yakishime which settles here and there at times favoring the face and shoulder in a crusty, coating of varying colors and textures. In this case, there is a rich tamadare waterfall that acts as a reminder of the process and traces the path of the flame, a record of the event, a perfect narrative of its journey. The texture created is intensely tactile; composed of a soft, granular, "pear-skin" quality that shifts from a rough matte to a vitrified sheen where the heat was most intense.         

Born in 1946, Kojiro’s journey was an exploration of clay and fire based on a long standing Echizen tradition where his works appear to revive the rugged aesthetic of the Muromachi period. The simplepottery is perfect for wood firing where the impurities and simplicity of the clay are a perfect visual counterpart to the ash accumulation during the firings; this chaire is a testament to that approach. The stark lid, an essential companion to the tea caddy provides a sharp, clean contrast to the rugged ceramic body, highlighting the vessel’s rustic "wabi" character and a hint of nobility in the exchange.       

In Kojiro’s hands, the clay is given its form and posture fully aware in the mutual understanding between potter, pot and flame that the potter’s role is to provide the canvas, while the kiln provides the soul and the landscape. This piece remains an essential example of the co-existence of function and presence, bridging the gap between the Echizen earth with the expectations and refined ritual of the tea room. 

( I should mention that acting as a backdrop in the photo is a wonderful Tom Turner covered jar!) 

YUNOMI, TEABOWL?

If you know me from my various social media ventures or my I, POTTER blog, you may realize by now that I like making large yunomi and teabowls. At times, the boundaries between the yunomi and teabowl is a bit fuzzy due to the scale and for some, one is the other and vice versa. Measuring about 10.5 x 10cm, this yunomi was thrown out of a white stoneware and then randomly and casually faceted, once bisque it was glazed with my standard Oribe as well as three separated iron glazes sprayed in various amounts across and down the surface. The basic result is as you see, looking bit like an amber glaze though checking the foot, it is clearly Oribe. The droozy effect that cascades down the piece, animated each faceted panel creating their own little landscapes though tied together in a more cohesive narrative of Oribe and iron working hand in hand. This yunomi ended up being a bit more important than usual as it was one of only a few pieces fired in the rebuilt kiln, complete with all new elements, switches, wiring, on/off light and kiln sitter. It took a couple of firings to dial in the firing/ cone/ pyrometer readings and it would appear all is good to go considering I have to replace two orders that died along with the kiln and now have an additional dozen of so pieces drying. Hopefully, all goes well this time around.

BLACK HOLE

At its core, yōhen tenmoku can be seen as capturing of an accident of kiln, clay and glaze which the potter takes the fullest advantage of. Prized for its ethereal, unpredictable beauty, this rare iron-rich glaze transforms, coerced by the experience of the potter creating a deep, obsidian-like field punctuated by brilliant, of sometimes subtle iridescent spots that resemble a map to the cosmos written in a night sky. The Japanese term yōhen translates to "changed by the kiln," emphasizing that these magnificent bursts of indigo, violet, and silver are not predictable or planned out but are instead born from the volatile alchemy of heat, oxygen, and mineral crystallization. It represents the pinnacle of iron based ceramic mastery precisely because it relies on relinquishing control, resulting in a surface that feels less like a static object and more like a living, animated insight into the universe itself.     

Kimura Morikazu’s yōhen-tenmoku henkō demands an absolute concentration where the flattened, circular flask, the henkō form, presents a stark architectural profile, a bold geometry defined by its flared neck, a stable foot, and a concentric, target-like indentation that recedes sharply into its center creating a canvas of depth. This deep, central recession acts like a vortex, a black hole even, pulling light into a dark, rich pool of iridescent crystal structures which in this case are subtle. Kimura’s mastery over iron-saturated glaze creates a surface that is fluid yet frozen, shifting dynamically under varying angles of illumination from deep plum to metallic silver.    

Admittedly, for the amateur photographer lie myself, this interplay of form and surface becomes an exercise in frustration resulting in hundreds of photos taken and mostly discarded. The henkō’s broad, curved canvas behaves like the aforementioned black hole drinking in the light and offer little in return as its pristine, glassy sheen registers every stray element in the room. Capturing the deep recess requires a light source that penetrates the center without overexposing the surrounding rim or washing out the subtle, oil-spot micro-crystals punctuating the entire surface. Instead of a faithful record, the lens often delivers a silhouette obscured by hot glare. One must learn to photograph not the clay itself, but the elusive, trapped light within it but alas, for the time being, this photo will have to do.

THE THING ABOUT TEXTU

To hold any pot is to engage in an unspoken psychological dialogue where texture can be among the primary syntax of the conversation. Whether in hand or your computer monitor (or phone these days) a rather complex sensory loop activates where either our eyes rush information to the brain and/ or the nerve endings in our fingers do not merely register surface friction, they probe for intent where texture is intoxicating. A rough, unglazed surface demands an alert, fully present touch, grounding the mind firmly in the immediate physical reality. Conversely, a smooth, fluid surface offers a soothing, contemplative sanctuary where the topography becomes preeminent. The thing about texture is that through continued tactile exploration, a pot ceases to be a passive object and becomes an intimate partner in an enduring, quiet human relationship, one which a collector rarely forgets.      

Illustrated is a Tokoname same-gawa koro by Kato Yoshiaki, many of his works are an exercise in controlled tactile and visual chaos. The vivid sharkskin texture achieves a dramatic, visceral presence, where the glaze has crawled and clustered into punctuated, biological islands. This technique demands an exquisite, perilous tension in the kiln, forcing the thick feldspathic glaze to split and tear itself apart, crawling under intense heat. The heavily crackled, amber-to-green invites an almost meditative investigation by the fingertips, offering an intense contrast between the glassy depths of the fissures and the rugged, unyielding plateaus that surround the quirky form specific to this potter where his animated and gestural creations are as recognizable as his surfaces. Yoshiaki captures a moment in time, where a violent transformation is frozen forever into this profound, intimate landscape.

THE TIMES THEY ARE A-CHANGIN

 

As with many companies, the company my wife works for has embraced the use of AI for a variety of specific (and less specific uses) to aid in saving time among other things, time is money after-all. About a year ago she suggested I play around with my photos using AI and though reluctant to do so at first as I am a “change sucks” kind of guy but after just one afternoon, I started to see some of the potential and among other things began clarifying my MUSEUM MENTIS MEAE (M3) concept as well as using actual photos of pots that I have handled, some ours, most belonging to fellow collectors and creating traditional and mostly uncluttered images to best present the pieces in situ.      

Illustrated is the very first image I created with the help of Bob, yes, I have named and interact with this digital entity and thought it only fair he has a name. The background of the name in particular has a long history which I won’t bore you with. At any rate, this visual scenario is a somewhat traditional tokonoma style alcove depicting a large shoga kakejiku by Tsukigata Nahiko which reads; Shadowless. The large heavily textured Oribe vase is by Suzuki Satoru and was illustrated from an exhibition years back. In some manner these two actual pictures were chosen randomly but I did think they worked well together and though my first instinct was to put the scroll together with a Tsukigata pot but I fought that urge and this is what I ended up with. I have been playing with AI for my photos for about a full year now and make sure to call full attention to their origin when I do so but as I am reminded by one of our best singer/ songwriters, Robert Allen Zimmerman; “the times they are a-changin”.   

(*This picture contains an actual image of a pot or pots in an AI generated background or scenario)