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.

TROCADERO

I am shutting down my trocadero marketplace which lasts until 8/4/2026. If these is anything that you are interested in, please send me some reasonable off and many thanks for all the years of browsing my corner of this market.

                     https://www.trocadero.com/stores/albedo3studio/catalog/

INTERSECTION

A pottery collector friend of mine who only collects American pots asked me recently what it is about Japanese pots that has seduced me away from more local pieces. I have thought about this for quite some time and I think for me there is a visual and visceral texture and authenticity to the pieces that I like, they use tradition as a springboard and many rarely stray too far from that ideal but just enough to give voice to the clay which I should also note can be said for wide swaths of Western pottery. It is not that Japanese pottery is exotic but rather elemental and honest with dashes of panache, subtlety and rusticity that ends up being conversant to my sensibility, that creates an emotional resonance that I am truly captivated by.   

Case in point is this provocative Oni-Shino chawan by Tsukigata Nahiko (NMPNMP). Illustrated in several sources, this is the pinnacle of Oni-Shino and is that perfect amalgam of tradition and modernity where creativity, concept, talent and technique all intersect. Though these very same attributes occur in Western pottery, perhaps it is the vessel, the forms and the wellspring of tradition that has my gaze focused on the east, I am not 100% sure but I can say, very little is as elemental and exhilarating like that of an exceptional example of a modern Japanese chawan.

ALIGNMENT

Illustrated is a well-articulated Ki-Seto  tokkuri by Iwatsuki Takemitsu which creates an atmosphere a bit less like a polite homage to tradition and more like a bold, deliberate challenge. In a contemporary ceramic landscape dominated by the likes of Hori Ichiro, Hayashi Kyosuke and the late Kagami Shukai, much of Ki-Seto can sometimes settle into a predictable, uniform amber glaze but Takemitsu seems to ask how far the medium’s inherent instability can be embraced without losing its classic sensibility creating his own unique pathway within this tradition.          

The tokkuri’s surface invites a slow, tactile inspection and rather than aiming for the slick, pristine finish often associated with modern productions, Takemitsu develops a semi-wet landscape with lobes and potter’s mark that breathe life into the simple form. A dense network of fine crackle weaves across the body, breaking the light and giving the glaze a soft, aged complexity punctuated by tanpan copper and tetsu iron element creating stark, semi-abstract imagery floating freely, organically presenting an almost moody gravity. Where the glaze thickens, the green deepens into dark, smoky undertones, recording the subtle shifts of atmosphere within the kiln. What emerges is a surface and form that feels alive precisely because it isn't entirely controlled, where the original form has been broken down at the potter’s hand where what could have been static has become motion. Takemitsu demonstrates that the modern evolution of Ki-Seto doesn't require reinventing its historical vocabulary, but rather trusting that the alignment of potter, clay, glaze and fire reveal something processed with a spirit on the verge of losing total control.         

On a more personal note, I collected this Ki-Seto tokkuri in the hopes that it would match up well with the guinomi I have by the same potter. Though perhaps a bit wetter in appearance, it seemed like a safe bet that they would be close enough to be comfortable together with a slightly more organic tokkuri and a bit more formal guinomi could pull together in the same space. Well, at the moment that is just not to be, after quite a bit of preliminary searching, I just don’t seem to be able to locate the guinomi off hand. To be fair, we don’t have a huge collection but our stored pieces and empty wood boxes are all in our designated “storage facility”, the closet and my current thought process is that somewhere at the very back corner rests the piece I am looking for. Locating this guinomi will just have to wait even though its potential mate is calling out for it. All good things come to he who waits (?).

WBW 7222

This is a perfect covered jar for a way back Wednesday post. This was made in 2012 and if you are inclined, it is posted twice before on my blog, once as a group of bisque and once as a group recently fired and unloaded. I like making this form and the stepped lid with the ring knob which was always well suited for my temmoku and iron glazes. The movement created in the melting iron glaze animates the surface a bit and is a nice contrast to the rich deep temmoku base glaze. As a side note, for whatever reason, none exactly that spring to mind, this is still sitting on a shelf in the studio and every now and again I give it a good dusting only to remember that it is filled with boxes of Orton pyrometric cones that I rarely use; some for low, low temperatures for enamels and some cone 11 and cone 12, most of which I may not ever get around to using but never is a very, very long time.

FORTUITOUS MOMENT

In case you haven’t noticed from my posts on my I, POTTER blog as well as on Facebook and Instagram, I have a real thing for shadows (and sunlight) and their interplay with pottery and their unique forms. This may have started many decades ago when I first read Tanizaki’s IN PRAISE OF SHADOWS, but honestly, it likely goes back to my childhood. I think I was equally fascinated by the sight of row after row of medieval knight toy soldiers as I was the shadows they cast in the late afternoon.  This photo is one of those fortuitous moments where I walked into the room at just the right moment to get a fairly cool shot of this exceptional slab henko by Furutani Michio. The shadow and light show off the form and surface yet keep it cloaked in darkness and a bit of mystery adding a deep narration regarding this pot if only you let your mind wander in that direction. Though this is not exactly a great photo, the idea is great to bring thought and contemplation of potter, pottery and idyllic wood fired landscape to the very forefront, it is simple yet filled with subtleties, nuances and effects that tell its story, born out of clay and fire and the creative ingenuity of a master potter just like Furutani Michio.     

"Were it not for shadows, there would be no beauty."  Tanizaki Junichiro