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.

SYNTHESIS

Illustrated is a vivid Oni-Shino teabowl by Tsukigata Akihiko where a palpable, visceral tension exists between classical form and a surface born of a rather chaotic thermal transformation. The vessel’s noble, Ido inspired posture rises with a bold, expanding silhouette, lifting with purpose from a pedestal like and strongly defined foot ring (kodai) to a wide rim. Unlike passive, uniform bowls, Akihiko shapes a contour that flows and is imbued with a distinct structural presence, its outward flare is consciously executed with an intentional power that is bowl pleasing to the eye and exudes a sense of calculated confidence.     

The Oni-Shino surface of feldspar, iron and ash is drama incarnate, presenting a rich field of visual play, a landscape of variation and abstraction in three dimensions a successor to the master and a continuation of the legacy born of fire and clay. There is a dense network of intentional kannyu crazing, like organic spiderwebs spread across a pale, translucent feldspathic glaze, broken by rich passages of deep, rich iron and ash in motion, a clay canvas made into living panorama. Dark iron drips cascade down the shoulder, contrasting against subtle blushes of peach and cool celadon-tinged greens where the glaze gathers thickest where gravity and high-fire intensity has pitted and crazed the surface, creating a tactile object where potter, clay, glaze and flame engage in fierce aggressive dialogue.    

This expressive intensity directly inherits and builds upon the legacy and teaching of his father, Tsukigata Nahiko. Where Nahiko pioneered the unbridled, primal force of Oni-Shino and Oni-Iga through monumental determination of spirit and fierce sculptural conviction, Akihiko has channeled that ancestral fire into a refined balance of power and intimacy. He retains the master’s reverence for the unpredictable alchemy of the kiln, the heavy wood-ash deposits, the melted and running iron and thick, cascading glass-like streams while instilling a slightly more fluid, contemporary rhythm into the bowl's profile.  

Ultimately, Tsukigata Akihiko does not merely replicate his father’s idiom, he honors the legacy by pushing the boundaries of the Oni-Shino glaze dynamics. This chawan stands as a stark example and compelling synthesis of an inherited artistic lineage and journey toward individual mastery, where all of the raw elemental forces coalesce to create a deeply resonant vessel for tea.          

“This Oni series of tea bowls recreates the original Japanese Shino ware fired approximately 400 years ago in a anagama, resulting in a variety of colors achieved through kiln transformation. I, (Tsukigata) Akihiko, still operate with that "oni" spirit as my foundation, driven by my creative philosophy and drive and I continue my passionate creative activities at [exhibitions] throughout Japan. This (work) is reminiscent of the Momoyama period pottery and tea ceremony ceramics that were enjoyed by warlords of Japan's Sengoku period, seeking solace in their art. That is truly Anagama art work.*” Tsukigata Akihiko 10/2026 

(*This quote was translated from Japanese to English and as such, is as close to the original meaning as is possible.)  

(Gallery photo of Tsukigata Akihiko being interviewed was provided by the artist.)

HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY

Perhaps because I am a product of too much TV, Movies and music, as soon as I pulled this bowl out of the kiln my mind went to the classic 1941 film, HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY where everything finds its relationship to some form of media or another. This bowl is a wan-gata style bowl, thrown and classically tooled on the wheel out of a white stoneware before being given its surface marching orders. Using a very dependable clear as the first glaze, it is then dipped in a secondary glaze after drying completely lest “bad stuff” end up plaguing the pot. Once the second glaze was dry, it was sprayed with a thin wash and then had a thick and yes, very runny wash added to the surface it is at this point that I have no choice but to give over to heat and serendipity as the glaze will go where it goes and there is no last-minute interventions.        

In this picture you are looking into the interior where multiple cascading trails have run into the bottom of the bowl and where they mingle, besides some other interesting little details it has create some shimmering, dark crystals. I will admit this Hongyo-yaki inspired work is a bit in-your-face but as you look at the flow, movement and variegation, maybe it is a bit like a fungus and will grow on you if you give it some time, I know it has for me.    

"There is no fence nor hedge around time that is gone..." Huw Morgan  

THE WILD WEST

Anyone who was active on the internet back in the very early days of eBay can testify, these times were the wild west of collecting. In truth, you never knew what you may find and if you would even get it if you won it. Though of no great value and one of a great number of these carvings, this is our Ainu bear, typical in style and carving though a bit more expressive than some. I would like to think this has a cautionary and illuminating story, we purchased it off eBay way back, maybe 2000 or so. It cost $19.99 and $12 shipping from Japan and was bid/ won from one of a small handful of Japanese dealers who were omnipresent at the time, they were the sole source on eBay for buying direct from Japan. The auction was bare bones and devoid of any description other than “wood bear” and four or five pictures so when it arrived and it was over 18" across, we were more than a bit surprised. It was wrapped up in padded paper and then in craft paper. covered over in packing tape so it looked like a mummy, well a mummy of a bear. I had to surgically cut it out of the packing to keep from scratching or damaging it. When I think about those early days, this auction and this bear always are front and center.