FULL CIRCLE

I am sure a number of people have encountered this (Yoshien) tea bowl by Raku Kichizaemon XV in video form or static pictures and as such the viewer becomes witness to a quiet, deliberate rupture within four centuries of tradition. This stalwart bowl stands before us not as a passive receptacle, but as a bold, visionary landscape sculpted directly by hand, fire, experience and raw intuition. The form bravely abandons soft, predictable roundness in favor of dramatic planar cuts, carved with a spatula until the clay yields vertical facets that catch and hold light in unexpected ways. Its rim undulates like a rugged mountain ridge, dipping and swelling unpredictably to guide the viewer’s eye along an uneven, living horizon. Looking directly into the bowl, the interior drops into a deep, shadowy abyss, forming a quiet, contemplative pool designed specifically to frame the vibrant green of whisked tea. Beneath this sculptural mass, the base reveals a heavy, asymmetrical footing, struck clearly with the master’s seal amid fine, meticulous stamped impressions, a deliberate signpost of profound craft anchored at the very foundation of the vessel.    

The surface tells the story of an intense aesthetic and thermal dialogue, capturing the violent grace of the kiln's interior. Across its facets, a myriad of texture and seemingly abstract glaze presents a landscape movement where the glazes do not simply coat the clay; they run, crack, and transmute under extreme heat, leaving liquid pathways over a gritty, coarse, and unyielding texture that demands to be held. Every square inch offers a distinct tactile experience and visual journey, balancing raw, unglazed earthiness with the glassy sheen of melted oxides.   

For centuries, Raku ware evolved around subtle restraint, classical hand-shaping, and the gentle, unassuming warmth of the tea ceremony, guided by prescribed rules and functional constraints, Raku Kichizaemon XV broke open this tradition from within. By introducing aggressive sculptural carving and enticing new and abstract extreme surfaces, he modernized and transformed the traditional vessel from a purely functional container into a bold, expressive force. By pushing these boundaries of what a tea bowl “is” he has clearly challenged the viewer to engage with tension, asymmetry, and raw sculptural energy while remaining deeply faithful to the fundamental utility of the object. In fact, this radical contribution lies in demonstrating that deep reverence for a four-hundred-year-old tradition proclaiming that Raku need not require quiet stillness or static repetition; it demands a fearless, living evolution that honors the spirit of innovation that birthed Raku in the first place.  

The very origin of Raku ware in sixteenth-century Kyoto was born from a spirit of radical aesthetic rejection. Guided by the tea master Sen no Rikyū, arbiter Hon’ami Koetsu and the tile-maker Chōjirō aesthetics began to turn away from the Chinese and even Korean ceramics favored by the elite focusing on the indigenous imagination of “local” Japanese potters. In their place, these hand-built quiet, unpretentious tea bowls embraced restraint, soft contours, and a stark, dark simplicity and what emerged were the early black and red Raku bowls; understated, unassuming, and deeply rooted in the philosophy of wabi, finding profound beauty in the austere, the simple, and the unadorned. For four centuries, the Raku lineage preserved this sanctuary of quiet form, refining hand-carving techniques and low-temperature firings into a sacred, carefully guarded tradition passed down through generations. 

Against this backdrop of quiet continuity, the work of Raku Kichizaemon XV appears at first glance to be a startling, almost irreverent break from his ancestors. Where Chōjirō sought soft, rounded forms that melted into the palms, Kichizaemon XV carves aggressive, sharp-faceted planes that push outward into space. Where the early masters favored uniform, velvety dark glazes, his surfaces explode with decorated, abstract surfaces born from pulling glowing vessels directly from the kiln into violent atmospheric cooling. These vessels refuse to sit quietly in the tea room; they demand attention as sculptural, expressive entities that embrace chaos, drama, and intense tactile energy. 

Yet to my way of thinking, this dramatic and apparent departure brings the tradition full circle to its truest essence. Chōjirō’s original creation was not a conservative adherence to rules, but viewed in a historical lens was a revolutionary act that shattered the established aesthetic conventions of his day. By fearlessly and boldly pushing past the quiet boundaries set by his predecessors, Kichizaemon XV embodies the exact same rebellious, pioneering mindset that birthed Raku in the first place. True dedication and reverence for a living tradition does not lie in static repetition or safe imitation, but in meeting the contemporary moment with the same courageous, uncompromising spirit of innovation, the zeitgeist of modernism. In breaking the traditional mold, he declares his understanding of its origins and honors it completely. 

Through this bowl, Kichizaemon XV invites us to reconsider and reflect on the dialogue between potter, materials and process. He does not force the clay into submission, nor does he passively step back and let the fire dictate the outcome instead, he engages in a high-stakes improvisation, meeting the unpredictable nature of the Raku process halfway. The result is a piece that feels both intensely modern and timelessly primitive and elemental, baring the weight of over four centuries of tradition while breaking entirely free from its constraints. In hands that hold it, the bowl becomes a meditative focal point, a reminder that beauty often resides in the rugged, the fractured, and the bold.   

(On a personal note, when I first saw this video and subsequent photos, I was just overwhelmed, I was sure profundity had taken shape. The form, surface, volume and foot are raw power, it is dynamic and sculptural in some respects like a brisque poem in three dimensions. I have seen and handled many chawan over the years and though this is not in hand and doing my best to translate video into a structured reality, this has had a profound influence on my thought process regarding the general concept of chawan. This is not static, it is a living vessel of nobility and ritual, hewn from the simplest of materials and then made to keep that sensibility of being both organic and uncontrived as if it just happened, like a Big Bang in clay.)  

You can see a wonderful video on Instagram featuring this Raku Kichizaemon XV chawan by following this link:

https://www.instagram.com/p/DezO07ZI-ZC/

 

TIMES TWO

       

Here are two Iga chawan, one by Tanimoto Kosei, the father of modern Iga and the other by his son, Tanimoto Kei. These are both up for sale on my Facebook page if at the very least you would like to see more pictures of them.

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100074959900457

 

MAYBE FIVE

Illustrated is a pair of thrown and altered bowls made square and now comfortably resting and drying. I made these after tooling a group of sencha style cups, several small plates and a couple of covered serving bowls, I had the need to make a couple more pots as tests or filler. In case you can’t tell, the bottom one is a bit bigger than the top bowl which seems to happened naturally, organically. Though both thrown out of the same amount of clay, the second piece ends up a bit larger and though I rarely throw large numbers of the same pots at a time, they seem to evolve and I am able to get a bit more out of the clay as the throwing session continues. Obviously, the next step is to get these dried out and bisque and then I will most likely impress them into the continued testing phase of the Hongyo style glazing exploration. The last teabowl though nice came out rather dark and has a different but related look to the very first several tests. I have thinned down the secondary glaze which is recently replenished and this will or will not solve the darkness issues. On a side note, I am not sure why I decided to stack this pair but now seeing it this way it does give me a few ideas for another form, I guess I’ll jot this down in my notes and get back to it in the next year or two, well, maybe five.

HAPPENSTANCE OR SERENDIPITY

Recently on a Facebook Japanese pottery group page, someone posted a picture of a “disenpotteried”* wood box and asked if the empty box had or held value and are they worth collecting? There was an array of answers and viewpoints to which I added my own. Obviously, an empty box, first and foremost has a value to store something in that would need or benefit from a secure space. Secondly, there are collector’s and dealers who are acquiring wood boxes by a variety of well known potters among which potters like Itaya Hazan, Rosanjin, Kawai Kanjiro and Hamada Shoji likely rank near or at the top. The third option is that should you acquire a pot sans box, it is quite possible that could come across a box, signed by the exact potter and describing the exact nature of a pot you have in need of a home. I think that though an empty wood box does not have some inherent value its worth depends on the use and need of a collector.  

Case in point, a while back I acquired a rather dynamic kinuta, mallet vase that was unboxed. Normally I try to shy away from unboxed pieces but this was certainly the exception to the rule and was acquired on a ubiquitous auction site for a very reasonable price. At the time, I searched around and found a wood box that was perfect for storing the piece once the pot was no longer being displayed as we rotate our pots in part due to the lack of area to display pots properly. Two years passed and I was searching across several website and on another auction site I found a wonderful, signed, double boxed set, the exterior one lacquered that included a custom-made silk shifuku bag for a mallet vase which is common for the potter. I was fortunate to win the box/ bag set and ultimately the real cost was the shipping. When it arrived, I was truly shocked, inside the box was a xerox of the vase that belonged inside the set along with all kinds of paperwork related to the original purchase. The xerox and flyer both illustrated the very Tsukigata Nahiko Oni-Shino kinuta hanaire that I had collected several years previously. Happenstance or serendipity, the vase snug in its decorative silk suit is nestled in its double box and so when someone asks me, what is the value of an empty wood box, I guess it boils down to is your errant pot in need of its own personal space and what does the box actually say. I will mention that I know of two other such examples of pot and boxes being reunited, one a Kawai Kanjiro henko and the other an Itaya Hazan koro, I guess anything is possible.  

I know I have used this quote before but it makes so much sense;  “Serendipity always rewards the prepared.” Katori Hall  

(*likely not a real word)

OCHIBA

As I write this short post, our house which is built into a hill is being bombarded by leaves, a windy day is doing its best to clear the row of trees behind our home of all of their remaining foliage. As the symphony of falling leaves (ochiba) plays out across our roof, I am reminded of a particular bowl that I handled just a short while ago and to be honest, though I have held my share of bowls, few possess the paradoxical weight of a Banura Shiro chawan. For those familiar, Banura is a potter, an artist with a distinct voice, and his forms are deceptively simple, functional and yet contain a small universe within their walls. He works within the classic idiom where restrictions and expectations do not set boundaries he can not summit to and in doing so, the final form is always unmistakably his. This chawan, for instance, at first glance, a broad, tapered cylinder portrays stability, though it has an organic quality that scoffs at rudimentary geometry. They are formed, you can feel and sense the intention in the slight swelling, the subtle asymmetry of the rim, the way the clay was urged and coaxed; his chawan are not trying to be perfect, which is precisely why it is perfect. 

The surface of a Banura chawan is another conversation, a landscape that is simple with all of the visual hues of complexity. Looking at this bowl, the glaze isn't just applied as it becomes the bowl and depending on the light source, we see that rich, almost wet luster, a deep chestnut brown that holds the darkness and reflects the room, creating an active sense of place and the space which it commands. The genius here is the subtle and nuanced texture which is a landscape born from clay, glaze and just the right amount of fire. It reminds us of its origin, the very soil that was fired into being; materials mined, clay dug, formed and baked following centuries of tradition that proceeded the making of this simple bowl.  

Banura's relationship with the Rimpa tradition is evident in this work as well as the vast majority of his decorated ware. We must look closely at the stylized, silvery-grey maple leaf centered on the form, it is a signature of his master, but it is also the key. Rimpa, or rather the school that emerged from Sotatsu and Korin, was about sophisticated simplification which Banura has taken to heart and set about perfecting. The core of Rimpa took the natural world and refined it into pattern, somewhat idealized and even romanticized, a graphic elegance that Banura now applies to a different canvas, neither paper or silk but rather fired clay.

Here, the leaf is not painted on, it has just happened, like a falling leaf attracted to the naturalistic sensibility of the 3-D canvas. Look at the veins, this is classic Rimpa, the addition of gold against that deep, earthy tone is the simple addition that animates and completes the adornment, the absolute, deliberate, artifice of precious metal meeting the elemental roughness of the clay elevates the natural motif into a timeless and noble symbol, creating a focal point that is both simple and profoundly luxurious. This is Banura’s unique form, where the classic teabowl meets the graphic elegance of Rimpa, a conversation made manifest in clay.

 

STANDARD

I was having a conversation with an internet friend when the topic turned to the soda blue, Persian influenced glaze that I am currently using. It was pointed out that a long while back I put up a small porcelain bowl with black slip and a chattering decoration on the piece, though only bisque, essentially, once posted I never got back to putting it up finished. After some digging, I found a picture of the piece glazed, it is a simple 8” v-bowl and as you can see, the design is simple as is the form and glazing. Using a single tooled, I did my best to add some variation to the actual chattering and most likely should leave this technique up to those more seasoned, more practiced than I am. The truth is with a lot of what I do, I will make a few pieces here and there and sometimes not revisit it for what can be a very long intermission of sorts though if memory serves me, this was one of several dozen bowls of varying sizes, a few teabowl and a couple of covered pieces all glazed in the Persian influenced blue. At any rate, here is the finished bowl, chattering and blue comes standard.    

“People mistake their limitations for high standards.”  Jean Toomer

IRONY?

Is this irony? I was just having a conversation about enjoying penning slightly longer posts and though I am working on one, I ran out of time and now am at the point of putting something up, saying look at me and have a great evening. On a recent trip to the big city, Utica/ New Hartford, we took a detour and ended up at a new to us pastry shop, DESERTS BEYOND THE ORDINARY, a shop name well deserved. We arrived with a predetermined selection provided they were available and picked out two cannoli and two lobster tails, one chocolate and one banana (!), these four would have to be a base line against other pastries we have had and against future excursions to their place. The cannoli and lobster tails were all made of high quality ingredients, wonderful pastry and stuffed interiors, all were excellent choices though still shy of our favorite and distant shop in the land of Connecticut, Meriano’s. We will definitely go back and would give these a good, solid and enjoyable 4/5, worth the detour or excursion.

NEW LENS

Holding a vessel initially and fundamentally crafted for function is a moment of awakening, realizing that within the details of the form, structure and surface resides an entire culture’s spiritual and aesthetic transition which is alone, the quiet privilege of the potter. The evolution of the Japanese teabowl, or chawan, is not a story of sudden invention, but one of radical adoption, evolution and considered creation. It is at its core a story, centuries in the making of how an unassuming, utilitarian Korean rice bowl, like the Ido chawan, was discovered and focused on as a paragon later to be elevated from the communal kitchen to the absolute pinnacle of Japanese aesthetic philosophy within the distinctly Japanese ritual of chanoyu.    

In the beginning, the earliest days of the increasingly formalized tea gatherings, the dominant aesthetic prioritized perfection, in short and due course the ruling elite favored flawless, prized Chinese vessels known as karamono  (Chinese things). These imports were symmetrical, clad in immaculate celadon or dark, glossy tenmoku glazes and due to their perfection and exotic nature they were objects of prestige, commanding authority through their unblemished forms. As the tea masters, most notably Sen no Rikyū, began to reshape the ritual into something beyond prestige and elitism into a contemplative practice of profound mindfulness, the sense of the perfect rapidly lost their spiritual resonance. The early and formulative masters sought a spiritual and aesthetic connection that was intimate and unpretentious, where the goal shifted to searching inside one’s self as a bi-product of the ceremony.    

This departure is where chajin found this connection in the Korean Ido style chawan and other rustic and unpretentious vessels, the embracement of the wabi-sabi culture. Bowls that were favored were likely thrown by anonymous craftsmen as simple, everyday domestic ware for food and again, initially these bowls arrived in Japan without any fanfare or artistic pretense waiting to be “discovered” and re-accessed. The early teabowls were rough, their foot rings were often coarse, their glazes uneven, sometimes pooling into accidental droplets or cracking over the surface, they bore the visible markings of a rapid and casual making on the wheel throw where slight asymmetries/ irregularities like ridges created by throwing and distortions from the heat of the wood kiln all added to, contributed to this new aesthetic preference.    

As their exposure grew, tea masters sought out these pieces, holding these bowls and recognized them for their organic, unpretentious honesty. The transition from using these pieces for daily use to impressing them as the focus of chanoyu fundamentally shifted the direction of Japanese design, a new aesthetic was emerging and like a pebble, dropped into a pond, the ripples moved out and touched art and tradition throughout Japan. This new ritual and aesthetic birthed a preference for wabi-sabi, giving way to the appreciation to imperfection, the impermanent, and the incomplete.      

Viewed through this new lens of appreciation/ understanding, what a casual observer might dismiss as a flaw or irregularity became a focal point, prized details of meditation and contemplation. The irregularity of the rim offered a varied tactile landscape for the lips and presence and sense of volume of the vessel in the hands brought the physical and metaphysical in direct contact with one another. All of the features created shifting shadows under the dim light of a thatch-roofed tea room and the chawan became a mirror for the natural world: unforced, slightly weathered, and entirely unique.   

This shift altered Japanese ceramic and many other crafts productions indefinitely giving way to indigenous creation instead of relying solely on copying Chinese symmetry, local kilns like Raku, Shino, and Oribe began intentionally crafting vessels that embraced and revered the accidental and the austere through manipulation and intent, striving for those characteristics. The Korean rice bowl acted as both mirror and lens to the Japanese eye reveling that true beauty does not demand perfection of surface and form but rather, beauty resides in the quiet honesty and nature of raw materials, the hand of the maker, and the soft, weathered patina that comes with time and dedicated human touch.        

By way of this long-winded introduction and not exactly Ido related, looking back into the past, this chawan captures the essence and flavor of modern Ki-Seto, where the essentials of the Momoyama tradition is reinterpreted without losing its ancient soul. In this Hayashi Shotaro Ki-Seto Chawan, we witness an extraordinary display of this balance where the faceted wall profile provides a crisp, contemporary presence, a structure that commands the space effortlessly. The classic matte glaze surface punctuated with copper tanpan is expertly achieved here, catching the light with a soft, understated glow, presenting surface and form that effortlessly shifts back and forth between what has been and what can be in this century’s old tradition. 

What makes Shotaro’s vision so compelling is his control over classic Ki-Seto accents as the deep, weeping green copper (tanpan) splashes bleed down the facets with a sense of deliberate spontaneity and purpose, balanced with the pairing of the diffuse dark iron scorch marks that provide historical depth. Peering into the interior the interior continues to   reveal the soft matt surface which reflects a certain amount of volume back to the user. Finally, the unglazed foot in Hayashi Shotaro Ki-Seto chawan gives way to the raw clay and hints of clay now removed, exposing a perfectly crafted kodai, both pedestal and anchor. Modern masters like Shotaro remind us that we are merely temporary curators of a living, evolving tradition where chance encounters last long beyond the moment.

THE FIRST

There is always a first when moving on from test pods and thrown, small cylinders and this was the first, successful Hongyo-yaki influenced piece. The bowl was thrown out of white stoneware as the surface seems to work best on this clay, it was faceted to add motion and verticality to the piece and then glazed. The surface consists of an even clear glaze over which the secondary glaze is applied followed up by a thin wash and then a thick wash which is the runny, droozy, deep green that easily makes its way all the way down the foot and onto the firing plinth. I realized these pieces would run like crazy and just a simple Dremel adjustment evens out the foot to smooth pedestal. I know I have mentioned this before but this is loosely based on a large Hachi that I saw many years back, Hongyo-yaki by Mizuno Hanjiro. I have since this piece made about a dozen of more pieces and one of the more classic teabowls will be in an upcoming international teabowl show. Now that I am beginning to get a handle on this surface, I need to use it on larger pieces, perhaps a covered jar, a water jar or a mallet vase?

THE FIELD STONE

This is one of those pottery adjacent posts, so remember, you have all been warned.  

Standing within the quiet solitude of the tea room and to some small degree both commanding and orchestrating the space, the low folding screen, furosaki byōbu, serves not merely as a physical boundary separating the kettle from the host, but as an invitation into a meditative and quieted world. Painted and crafted by Kishimoto Kennin (1934–2022), he was an artist revered for his formidable mastery over intense and purposeful wood firings and raw, shizen-yu surface and glazed ware alike, this work illustrates a different facet of his artistic soul, an exploration into two dimensions. Where his pottery is defined by traditional and innovative glazes, visceral surfaces, dramatic atmospheric transformations inside the kiln, his ink painting and calligraphy reveal a gentle, self-deprecating warmth, a charm from time long passed.

The rich, lyrical calligraphy which dances across the screen presents a contemplative reflection on rustic life, a dedication to creation and quiet devotion:

“The sun rises within the potter’s wheel,

The small bird sings to the voice of clay,

And the field stone becomes the Buddha.”

The screen is completed with the signature to the extreme left, Sanzan Tojin (Mountain Potter) alongside his seal, the unpretentious and casual text is accompanied by a charming, yet understated ink sketch depicting a Buddhist monk nestled along a quiet stream. The contemplative inscription captures the heart of Zen aesthetic philosophy: the extraordinary revealed through the humble and ordinary. The constant spinning of the wheel mirror the rising sun, the song of a wild bird harmonizes with the potter at work, and a simple stone resting in an open field transforms into a object of quiet reverence and distraction from the mundane.      

Though most notably celebrated for his personal journey reviving the raw power of medieval Iga stoneware, works celebrated for their fierce landscapes of all-natural ash and idiosyncratic bold forms, as this tea screen makes perfectly clear, Kishimoto was far from a single-tradition artisan. Establishing a studio and refuge high in the mountains near Toki,deep in his personal isolation, he moved seamlessly across classical Japanese ceramic genres. He brought equal mastery to kannyu crackle-glazed celadons, Shino, Oribe, and Ki-Seto wares.     

In many respects, his creative life was defined by this breadth, fluidly translating the heavy impact of his clay work into delicately painted screens and brushwork with equal mastery and energy. In the context of chanoyu (the tea ceremony), this screen functions as a peaceful backdrop that centers both host and guest. By allowing this screen to frame its space we are instilled with a gentle reminder that spirit, hand, and nature are forever linked.