SIMPLE GREEN

Illustrated is a rather simple and small paddled jar glazed in my Oribe with a variety of washes over the surface. If memory serves me, this was specifically made as filler to fit between a group of larger covered serving bowls and thus falls under the “filler” category. I wanted to take a moment and clarify the term filler, it is not meant to lessen or diminish the variety of pieces that are made to go between larger pots and in fact some are orders as well, I just can’t necessarily think of a better more apt descriptor than that. At any rate, this current surface that I am using really shows off the paddling quite well and the light, white stoneware also makes for a brighter surface that I then muddy up a bit atomizing various oxides onto the pot which starts out as a simple green. As I mentioned it is a rather simple, even conservative pot that has found its way to Canada which I will remind readers, is still one of our largest trading partners on Earth.

TRAJECTORY

Illustrated is a small Oribe vase that despite its size, commands its space and a certain amount of attention through its sheer, unyielding presence. Almost totemic in nature it has balanced a bold texture with a subtle, stepped tapered form, a series of distinct horizontal tiers that give the verticality a rhythmic, segmented weight like some ancient stone monument. The stance is completely grounded, and the posture hints at movement that appears entirely intentional rather than accidental. The rim slopes gently inward, creating a tight, focused aperture that concentrates the interior space and compels the viewer for further inspection. The small, flanking lug handles near the shoulder are compressed against the body, serving less as functional utility and more as punctuation points that bracket the upper tier and break up the linear nature of the form.    

The surface is all about the tactile (and visual) capabilities of clay where a heavily textured, chattering pattern wraps entirely around the exterior, leaving deep, ridged furrows that trap light and shadow as well as glaze (and sometimes dust!). The texture feels eroded, raw, almost aggressive but not contrived and fussy. The surface is natural and organic, a rare and almost herculean feat of creation. Over this intense patterning, a rich, pooling deep green Oribe glaze has been applied. Where the glaze runs thick, it transforms into an opaque, vitreous moss green, collecting in deep, glassy pools within the crevices and creating a dark vertical streak down the front face where thickness and gravity battled in the ferocity of the fire and gave way to movement. Where the glaze thins over the crests of the horizontal ridges and elsewhere, it breaks cleanly to reveal the warm, buff ceramic skin underneath adding to the depth of the texture of the overall form. The interior reveals a completely different micro-environment: a dark, concentrated glaze pooling at the bottom, offering a stark contrast to the variegated exterior.        

Okabe Mineo (1919–1990) stands as one of the most significant iconoclasts of twentieth-century Japanese ceramics. As the eldest son of the larger-than-life potter Katō Tōkurō, Mineo forged his own path developing a style and work that could not be contained by the immense shadow of his family lineage and the somewhat traditional confines of both the Seto and Mino traditions. As a potter, Okabe wasn’t easily satisfied and rather than simply replicating historical Momoyama prototypes, he revitalized styles like Oribe and Shino by introducing highly personal, hand-built sculptural forms and heavily textured surfaces breathing life into a tradition dominated by stillness and sameness. Mineo rejected the idea that a potter should rely purely on the serendipity of the kiln or romanticized notions of chance forcing by sheer force of will and fine-tuned experience, his vision into his finished work. He demanded an exacting, intellectual approach to the craft, famously observing; "What meaning do instinct or accident have in achieving form? Without a concrete and accurate understanding of materials underlying technique, no development is possible."  

This specific Ao-Oribe Jomon hanaire (copper green rope impressed flower vase) perfectly captures that philosophy and effectively changed the trajectory of mid-century Japanese ceramics by treating Oribe ware as a medium for raw, tactile experimentation rather than simply a traditional canvas where the status quo dominated. The rough, chattered exterior and the heavy pooling of the green glaze are not the results of accidental distortion; they are the consequence of a deliberate, masterful manipulation of material limits. Mineo's work serves as a bridge between classical tea ceramics and modern expressive sculpture, securing his legacy as a titan who forced, even bent traditional clay into a fiercely contemporary dialogue.

OPEN ROAD

There is something seemingly quiet, a feeling of solitude leading to deliberate intimacy in holding a bowl designed explicitly for travel. The tabi-chawan, a tea bowl built for the road may hold certain demands other chawan may not, the balance between utility and presence spring to mind, a design challenge Kawai Takeichi meets with striking poise in this piece. Though it is more than likely this bowl was not meant to make its way along the Tokaido it processes those qualities even if the intent was to just make it across the vastness of a single room.    

Formally speaking, this simple bowl asserts a grounded, cylindrical mass where its vertical walls rise with an unhurried curve from a defined, sturdy foot ring (kodai), providing an immediate sense of both actual and perceived visual stability. The profile avoids ostentation, the superfluous details and throwing marks have all drifted away leaving a compact, self-contained volume that nestles comfortably in the hands. Like many pots of the Mingei movement and the Kawai school in particular, this is a vessel crafted not merely to be viewed on some distant shelf, often times collecting dust but created to be held, packed, unpacked, and used across some distances near of far even if it does end up on one’s computer desk.  

The surface, the fire painted canvas, is where Takeichi’s voice resonates most vividly and this bowl stands out from a sea of glazed ware. Covered in a rich, saturated iron glaze (tetsu-yu), the bowl becomes a surreal landscape of dynamic, dark-spectrum movement, where iron over iron punctuates the field and creates visual tension. Cells composed of golden rust, mottled ochre, and deep olive tones bleed into dark black-brown pools, creating a living surface where the dappled exterior catches the light across its gentle curving planes. Given the temperature and physics, the glaze melts and flows into subtle tendril-like runs, a testament to both chemistry and combustion. Frozen in time, the small bowl carries a wet, glossy depth that feels alive to the touch, animated and inviting, scenery constantly shifting under inspection.      

In this simple, unpretentious and noble (?) tabi-chawan, the shadow and spirit of Kawai Kanjiro, is undeniable, yet distinctly translated where Kanjiro channeled monumental energy and expressive unrestricted vigor into his creations, Takeichi absorbed those lessons and distilled them into a more disciplined and everyday functionalism. Though the expressive glaze work directly echoes Kanjiro’s mastery of the elements, Takeichi applied it to forms that for the most part remains strictly humble and utilitarian creating a mixture of both “beauty born of use” and a nobility of pragmatic creation. This bowl and works like it stand as a testament to lineage, taking Kanjiro’s fiery spirit and innovative creativity and shaping it into a quiet companion for a journey along an open road.

LIFE LESSON

I have spent the last three days making up glazes, washes and glazing up enough pots for two kiln-loads, possibly three. I am not a huge fan of glazing but am reminded of a very important (life) lesson, one I should adhere to, the time to make up glazes is when you notice they are too low to move forward and not the day you plan on starting to glaze. As with most things, this is not rocket science it is just proper planning and better time management than just rushing around trying to do too many things at once. There are several different glaze combos being fired, some tried and true and others just in their infancy so firings like this always make me nervous with more than a few pieces needed for a show and some orders. I’ll fire the first kiln tomorrow so time will tell and now it is advanced JuJu time. 

Illustrated is a Kuro-Oribe style tataki yunomi that was thrown and then beaten on and manipulated just a bit. It has a somewhat wonky appearance and rests on a foot, handcut using a simple sharpened shim stock wedge direct from the big hardware box-mart. I will say that I do enjoy making these, a process that is start to finish in  mostly under 30 minutes or so and on the odd occasion, they go right on top of the firing kiln and I am able to get them in a bisque the same day that they are made. It doesn’t get any faster than that.

EXPLORER

Yamada Masakazu (b. 1951) is a figure whose work exists at the sharp intersection of hereditary duty and individual exploration, he is both classic sakuhin craftsman and an explorer within his idiom. Born in Toki City, Gifu Prefecture, he is the current master of Hakusan Gama (White Mountain Kiln), an institution established by his great-grandfather at the turn of the 20th century. While he carries the weight of a multi-generational legacy, Masakazu has spent over five decades refining and defining his personal vocabulary that pays tribute to the Momoyama spirit of Mino-yaki while adapting to a contemporary aesthetic landscape.   

As with many potters brought up within a hereditary tradition, Masakazu’s study and apprenticeship began early and after graduating from the Tajimi Technical High School in 1969 he was immediately immersed in the duties and expectations of the studio. Working within this system, creativity and experimentation have borne fruit along the way as his career is marked by a consistent presence in the Japan Traditional Crafts Exhibition and the Asahi Ceramic Art Exhibition. Beyond his exhibition record, Masakazu has shown a wide array of skills from clay and glaze science to kiln firing that has earned him the title of Director of the Mino Ceramics Association.    

Yamada Masakazu is best represented within the styles of is proficient in Shino, Oribe, Seto-guro and Ki-Seto, it is likely his identifiable style and glazing of Shino that often tells the story of his temperament. Unlike the more dramatic and flamboyant styles of many of his contemporaries, Masakazu’s work often feels a bit quiet, reflective and contemplative emphasizing a softness, where the snowy feldspathic glaze seems to have just begun to melt over a rugged terrain. In many respect it is the soft and quiet aesthetic that holds its appeal where the pot is substitute for a simple ink painting or a lofty poetic exchange. 

In this particular chawan, we see the hallmarks of Masakazu’s mature and developed style. The form is robust yet it possesses a gentle, undulating rim that invites the touch. The bowl is first glazed in a thin layer of Shino accounting for the rich iron effect over which a thick, pure white Muji-Shino is applied and a finger is struck through the glaze in a casual and almost random fashion adding to the landscape of the bowl. Across the bowl, there is just enough punctuated yuhazu style pinholes to activate the surface creates a surface taking on the soft appearance of orange peel or weathered stone, as with most pots, how one sees or interprets what is in their hand is as varied as the breath of the human experience. 

In some ways this is a bowl about story-telling, its form and surface are the narration, the interplay between the thick, milky-white and the exposed, burnt iron glaze underneath creates a sense of high-contrast drama. The iron wash beneath the glaze is applied adding to the landscape it is a bowl that celebrates the casual, and quiet nature of the materials, where reminders of the potter’s hand is barely visible instead depending on the glaze and fire to complete the tale.   

Masakazu’s work along with many of the other traditional Mino potters, serve as a vital bridge between what was and what will be, the very future of Mino-yaki depends on these potters. Masakazu maintains the functional integrity required of a traditional chadogu maker while endeavoring to infuse each piece with a distinct presence and a unique voice. His simple bowls are not merely containers for tea; they strive to become environments of texture, form and shadow, inviting a quiet, contemplative engagement where the fundamental elements of earth, air, water and fire unite in a single bowl.

ASOBI

When you come face to face (or even face to image) with a chawan by Tamaoki Yasuo a dialogue begins, and participating in a conversation the likely dates back four hundred years of aesthetic rebellion. In this way of thinking, this modern Oribe chawan is not merely a ritualistic vessel but conceivable it is the embodiment of controlled, purposeful chaos, the visual and tactile manifestation of asobi, playfulness that characterizes much of the Momoyama period chadogu curated under the guidance of Furuta Oribe (1544-1615), which continues to pulse through the Mino hills today.      

The form of this chawan is unapologetically and even intentionally robust and though based on the basics of the idiom, the mechanical symmetry of the wheel becomes quite secondary favoring a slightly manipulated presence that conveys a naturalistic warmth rather than manufactured. The walls rise with a deliberate unevenness, creating a rim that wanders like a mountain path, dipping here, rising there and extending an invitation in its use and unabashed appreciation. It is on the surface where Tamaoki truly pays homage to the Oribe tradition while asserting his contemporary voice, a dramatic interaction between the deep, glossy and textured black and the warm, salmon-hues are worked across the white background like a spontaneous and playful abstract landscape. Combining elements of Kuro-Oribe, Narumi-Oribe and E-Oribe, Tamaoki brings Oribe into the modern age while relying on tradition and fundamental Momoyama aesthetics including negative space (MA) to forge through the crucible of fire the very honesty of the piece. The use of these elements infused into a single pot is a bold exercise in exhilaration and pauses which allow the viewer, the user moments to breathe through the encounter.    

Searching history, Oribe ware was born in the late 16th century, creating a radical departure from the quiet, somber tones of wabi-sabi. Named after and guided in its origins under the tea master Furuta Oribe, distorted shapes and vivid patterns were introduced and persisted into modern times where Tamaoki Yasuo, carries this pursuit of balancing function, aesthetics and the sense of playful beauty into the 21^st century. In the context of Tamaoki’s overall body of work, this chawan celebrates a modern potter’s transformative power within an age-old tradition. While he is recognized for his classic Shino, his Oribe work displays a specific type of visual daring, understanding that for a bowl to be truly "playful," it must first be technically perfect and the "play" is an intentional subversion of mastery, not a lack of it.            

In Japanese art, playfulness is a serious endeavor, it is the rejection of stiflingly perfection or rather the perfection of the imperfect. This chawan is all about the concept of asobi through its visual wit creating a well-read narrative of centuries of pots that have come before interacting with new thoughts, new ideas and a new voice added to the story-telling. Tamaoki’s modern Oribe interpretations challenges the user to find beauty in the asymmetry of the surface and the willingness to break from an orthodoxy which has become a bit rigid over the centuries. In its use in tea, where every movement is prescribed and standardized, the Oribe bowl provides a moment of visual surprise and freshness that reminds that nature, and by extension ceramic art, is not stagnant and is always moving, evolving even if it is not always easy to see. Tamaoki has captured that fleeting, rebellious spark, where the clay (tsuchi), decoration (kazari) and flame (hi), result in a work that is as much a challenge as it is a comfort.    

(This image is composed using two actual photographs of the tamaoki chawan and set into an AI generated scenario)

NARUMI-ESQUE

Illustrated is a simple, small faceted covered jar glazed in my Kuro-Oribe style surface with several iron panels with inlaid black decoration and at some level is just a really big teabowl with a lid. I decided on calling this style, “narumi-esque” after the Narumi-Oribe style of pottery which if you squint while wearing your imagination cap you may see some similarity or at the very least, influence. Way back when while working at Cleveland State, I started making pots with panels like this that interrupted the overall surface, they were at first a combination of a dark black glaze called blackbird-vitro and Secrest celadon which quickly expanded to temmoku and celadon and several others. I figured my Oribe surface would look good with the iron panels so I started small and went from teabowls to small covered pots and a few medium size bowls. It seems to work consistently and there is no crawling between the two glazes so that is a plus though I have been criticized (by a known heretic*) that the inlaid decoration on some of the pieces seems a bit like the Peruvian Nazca lines but you know what, I’ll take that any day. At any rate, here is the covered pot that was recently fired in normal lighting and in the sunlight which I think really shows off the details and the texture of the clay underneath. I am aware this isn’t going to change the world but for me, the more I can squeeze out of copper and uses for this current Oribe, the more satisfied I am and that is the best I can ask for. 

(*This is not an insult but rather an inside joke)

MORE TIME

Time is one of those things, quite illusive and I have been told, “it waits for no man”. Today was just one of those days were time got away from me, errands, glazing and I even managed to throw for an hour, but that is it so this post will be brief and as superficial as time has dictated. Illustrated is an outstanding Iga chaire emerging from its “homespun” shifuku like a moth from a cocoon, made for this piece by Furutani Michio by his wife back in the 1990s.

KAWAI’S IRON

I’ll make the assumption that when you think about Kawai Kanjiro and his students, it is more than likely that what does spring to mind is the depth and variations of the magical gosu blue. But added to that wonderful surface, perhaps more timeless and traditional is the tetsu-yu (iron glaze) palette stretching from the monumental masterworks of Kawai Kanjiro down through Takeichi and numerous other students. Based on various Chinese archetypes the Kawai tetsu-yu is remarkable for its sheer variety and versatility, transforming a single elemental oxide, into a vast spectrum of moods, what Nigel Wood described as “iron in the fire”. 

Far from any simple or monochromatic dark brown, this mastery of iron ranges from deep and mysterious, light-absorbing tenmoku blacks to fiery kaki (persimmon) oranges, speckled amber-gold rusts, and greenish-olive hues not to mention a panoply of celadons and the like. This sheer breadth is beyond impressive, achieved through deliberate and often subtle variation in the glaze chemistry, its application and a careful firing atmosphere, where a rapid drop in temperature may produce a glass-like surface while a slow reduction allows alchemy to bloom, drawing out fine crystalline details, oil-spot, or mottled and punctuated textures. Whether applied by dipping or by brushed, temperature and experience allowed magic to spontaneously occur, running in dark, tendril-like cascades down vertical landscapes, the Kawai school coerced iron into an expressive, living skin that bridges rugged functional utility with deeply poetic visual depth. 

Clockwise from top left, Kawai Takeichi, Kawai Hirotsugu, Mukunoki Eizo and Kawai Hisashi

HONGYO-ESQUE?

I have to be honest, I didn’t wake up one morning and think to myself, this is the exact thing I wish to pursue, to test and add my own spin to. Rather this started as a random testing accident and a love of a style that I first saw way back in the mid-1980s in the catalogue, ERDE UND FEUER. This German catalogue showcased a number of modern potters  and showed off and discussed the work of Mizuno Hanjiro. By way of a second admission, generally speaking I am not a huge folk art pottery guy but there was something so elemental and honest about his work and this large bowl in particular that has stuck in my mind, an indelible imprint if you will.    >After the initial test came out it became readily apparent it may only be a hop, skip and a jump away from the Hongyo-yaki inspired pieces I had seen all those years ago and this was the success after a run of line blends and misc. other attempts. This simple test cup was thrown and unevenly faceted and then glazed in two glazes before getting the Hongyo style washes applied. I tried to apply the washes evenly to try to control the running flow and realize that is going to be quite the chore and though I was pleased with these results for about ten minutes, the conclusion is, there is work to be done, more testing to do and a need to figure out where it will and will not work or enhance a pot form. Why can’t anything ever be easy.  

For those not totally up on Seto Hongyo-yaki, at the core of this enduring tradition is the multi-generational lineage of Mizuno Hanjiro, a family of potters who have championed the honest, unpretentious beauty of these folk ceramics (mingei) at the Hongyo-gama kiln. Facing the mid-twentieth-century onslaught of industrial incursion into the handmade and production of the items used in everyday life, Hongyo-yaki among many other pottery styles and crafts in general were threatened with what amounted to extinction. Mizuno Hanjiro found some measure of profound reassurance in the philosophy of Yanagi Sōetsu, Bernard Leach, and Hamada Shōji, who visited the kiln in 1964 and rather than succumbing to mass production or drifting into purely decorative territory, the Mizuno lineage doubled down on Seto’s core identity, utilizing local clays to create vessels with tremendous structural integrity and commanding posture especially as a reflection of the mingei movement. Using traditional wood firing, Hongyo-yaki is celebrated for its classic, robust Seto glazes, one such style can be seen in the attached illustration preserving a long-standing tradition as well as clarifying a voice most notably heard in the clay and pottery of Mizuno Hanjiro.