ANOTHER KILN FIRED

I glazed up and fired off a group of pots last week. The bulk of the kiln was utilitarian plates, serving bowls and the like. However with each group of pots for the kiln, I like to put several tests and new ideas or oddball techniques I have been working on, into the kiln. This usually means smaller pieces, small bottles, vases or teabowls.

I have always loved the works of the abstract expressionists and the spontaneous ink of the Zen calligraphers . Their use of space and line is so perfect, honest and appropriate. So every once and a while, I make some pots that borrow from these idioms. I try to work fast, spontaneously while being conscious of the form. Obviously, some work, some don’t, but the real enjoyment is at the moment you put pigment to pot.

A long while ago, I saw a demo for using a crinkly spring used to “facet” with. After seeing the demo, I took an old cheese cutter and converted it to accept the crinkly spring as its new wire. I have played with the wonderful textures possible from this technique on and off for a good long while. I recently threw a few large teabowls and had at them with the magic cheese cutter. I glazed them up in temmoku and haiyu and ended up with some nice surfaces. It is always nice to pull some oddballs out of the kiln!

WATER BLUE

I have been fascinated by Persian blue glazed pots for a long while. In the Boston MFA, there are a number of great Islamic pots, including some Raqqa wares. The subtly luminescent quality of the glaze is just wonderful and shows off the underglaze work to its best possibility.

I believe I got my first water blue glaze formula from Kirk Mangus or Linda Arbuckle in 1993 and I started working with the glazes and had a show of the first successful works in 1994. I used a fritted egg shell white and a rich red earthenware as my clay bodies. I made larger water jugs, pitchers, serving bowls, teabowls and teapots. I found the glaze just irresistible. Over the years I have continued to play with several “water blue” glazes and have tended to work with small intimate pots.

As a collector, modern pottery in Persian blue glazes are among my favorite. I particularly likes the works of Kato Kenji, Kato Takuo and Matsumoto Saichi. All three work in a style reminiscent of older Islamic pottery with a slightly modern twist. Good modern Persian influenced work is not seen to often, but when you see it you recognize it immediately.

(Large Persian influenced double gourd vase with underglaze black and gold leaf decoration by Matsumoto Saichi. From a private collection.)

GLAZING

So, I had to glaze pots last week, which admittedly is not my favorite thing to do. In preparation to glaze, I also realized I had to make up two of my glazes. It is at times like these that I am glad I have a pottery assistant.

I put in the call and much to my chagrin, I got no response. I called several additional times and finally gave up and decided to make the glazes myself. Hours later I finally found out where my pottery assistant had been for all this time………………………………..














Jun, the Wunder-Kat
(Sorry, it is Monday after all!)

INK CIRCLE

This bold and enigmatic Zen style enso is by the “Bear of Echizen”, Kumano Kuroemon. A potter of tremendous bravado and consummate skill with fire, his equally bold and spontaneous calligraphy is just pure excitement and it adorns most of his boxes for his pottery.

I would like to think his enso is a universe enso and represents all of the cosmos. Like the famous line from William Blake’s AUGERIES OF INNOCENCE, can’t you just imagine all of the universe in a single cup? Especially a cup the size Kumano makes them!

A GOOD BASE

I was recently asked if I had any durable, functional glazes that were good on stoneware at cone 9/10 with the thought of using washes and/or glazes over them. What I came up with is two glazes I have used quite a bit over time and both have proved to be very easy to use and look good with decoration over them.

The first glaze is rather famous and was acquired from Warren MacKenzie when I worked with him back in 1992. It is his famous Oatmeal glaze;

WM OATMEAL Cone 9/10
Talc 7.5
Custer Spar 50
Cal. Ball Clay 21
Kaolin 6
Whiting 7.5
Gerstley Borate 9

First off, I know it does not come up to 100%, just live with it, it works and is a very nice matt glaze that is very forgiving. It looks great with red iron, cobalt and black iron washes over it as well as in conjunction with other glazes.

The second glaze is Sandy’s Gold. I must confess, I don’t know who Sandy is (or was), but the glaze is a smooth buttery glaze that really looks great with washes over or under it. Thank you Sandy.............

SANDY’S GOLD Cone 9/10
Custer Spar 41.8
Whiting 17.5
Kaolin 13
Flint 27
Rutile 4
Red Iron Oxide 4

The pot illustrated is a covered serving bowl with Sandy’s Gold and a thinned cobalt wash over the glaze. The glaze breaks nicely over high points and sharp lines and feels great to the touch.

Though there is a myriad of glazes out there, I choose these two because of their ease of use, adaptability, easy to obtain materials and economy or the materials as well. Overall, two very usable glazes that won’t let a potter down.

DS@CSU

When my wife’s company decided to move her (us) to Cleveland, I had been making pots for over a year and was committed to continuing. Given a tip I called the professor at CSU, Dick Schneider about coming and looking at the facility. He invited me down and the first thing I noticed was the sprawling empire that was the pottery department.

CSU was over 20,000 sq.ft. of space, 3 large Alpine gas kilns, numerous electric kilns, test kilns, wheels everywhere, jolly/jigger equipment, mold making area, slip casting equipment and space for beginning and advanced students. It was a pottery mecca.

Dick was an exceptionally experienced and knowledgable guy. If you could ask it, he could answer it. He had made thrown ware, sculpture, molded ware, gas fired, salt fired, electric fired, this would be a great place to continue learning. I signed up immediately through the continuing education department. His wit and work were engaging and I went from student, to assistant to friend.

If all the world is a stage, CSU certainly personifies that. Besides the normal array of students, there are the advanced students, a rogues gallery. Added to this list is the Continuing Eduction students representing potters looking for a place to work, myself included, to individuals wanting to experience pottery first hand together with the senior citizen brigade who filled out the group. Add to this some real characters like Mike G., Gayle R., John A. and many others and the place was a buzz with every direction and thought process possible. Occasionally John Paolo would come by to do work on the electric kilns. Together Dick and John had more stories than Aesop. It was a great place where the mood was jovial and competitive.

Dick had a corner nook carved out for his private work area in which his wife made pottery as well. Patty made a wide array of highly collected airbrushed thrown and molded ware fired at cone 6 oxidation. In a way, Patty was like a second teacher at CSU as she had started out in stoneware and porcelain and had a vast amount of clay experience. Together, Dick and Patty pushed me away from teabowls and showed me how to make plates & lidded pieces. I was encouraged to try new things, clays, glazes, techniques, ideas, and Dick held my hand through my first attempt at mold making.


Within 6 months at CSU I had become the tech, responsible for firing the kilns, making clay and glazes and generally helping out. Most of the students liked me and I helped a number of them when Dick was gone or too busy. I had a great corner spot to work and access to all the kilns and the variety of temperature ranges the varying students wished to fire too. It was a fertile environment and I learned to use any clay, any glaze and any temperature to make some kind of pottery from Egyptian paste to cone 10 porcelain.

Did I mention one of the perks of CSU? They held sales twice a year that were out of this world. If priced within reason, you could sell everything you could make in a six month period. It was a crazy scene. The doors would open and people would swarm in and collect up large groups of the good, the bad and the ugly. For me, I was able to make back my clay/chemical costs and sell off ideas and directions that I was working toward. It was, simply put, a wonderful time.

Eventually, I knew it was time to move on. I spent about 4 years there and felt it time to set up my own studio with a partner I met at CSU (another long tale that was more than a bit rocky).

To this day, what I still remember fondly about CSU was Dick and his coffee cup that were seldom separated, he was always quick with a story or to tell a joke, but when it came to ceramics, he never steered me wrong.

(Illustrated is a salt fired and fumed large teabowl with amber glaze liner by Dick Schneider from the late 70’s. This is one of my favorite pieces.)

QUARTER HOUR

Every once in a while, I will take a 15 minute block of time to make something I have been thinking about or doodling. The 15 minutes includes; wedging, throwing, addressing, slipping, tooling, the whole shabang from start to finish. The objective is that it doesn’t give me any time to over think or over fuss with the pot.

The pot I just finished is based on a Karatsu vase that I have long admired. It was thrown in 3 lbs. of clay and was then hit with the heat gun, the foot rolled, the pot slipped and combed and then small lugs put on. Certainly not a masterpiece, but it addresses the swiftness that I would like the pot to espouse. I guess after I work on the idea for a while and make a bunch, I can get it to where I want it to go. The reality is that now that I have a stepping stone to work with. I have already started to modify the original design and have “transmogrified” the original idea into a more exaggerated covered form.

Once it gets biqued, I will glaze it in my temmoku and haiyu glazes and if it comes out, will post it up at a later date. Don’t hold your breath……………




(For those not experienced using a heat gun to dry a pot, practice is necessary to get it just right. The use of a heat gun can lead to warping and cracking, so remember, I warned you! Please use you heat gun responsibly and don’t operate heavy machinery or drive while using your heat gun.)

MULTIPLES

The collector part of me has always weighed out the veracity of collecting multiple pieces by the same potter. There is part of me that is immensely engaged by a particular artist and thus interested in having a number of their pieces around to converse with. On the other hand is the mundane reality of “too many pots and never enough money”. This puts the pragmatic part of me into gear and I usually collect a few pieces at most by a single potter.

Recently, an internet friend of mine started on a roll and ended up with a half dozen chawan by a particular artist. In essence, they would seem to be the same thing, just six times over. Luckily I have been able to see numerous photos of each bowl and the actual reality is that each piece has something very unique to say. One may have a great lip, a great mikomi, kodai, glaze surface, overall posture, each has a different dialogue with the viewer. Though they are all fine teabowls, each has features that stand out, though in balance with the piece, admittedly, one is truly the whole package. I envy his ability to put the bowls in a row and drink in the presence, posture and bearing of the group.

In fact, the ability to put together a group of high level chawan is a wonderful opportunity to study a potters work along their own road to discovery. I suspect having the group is immensely satisfying and will provide a lifetime of interaction between potter, pot and collector. He is a lucky fellow!

PATIENCE

I am in the midst of a terra cotta cycle right now which entails throwing, tooling, bisquing and glazing. A standard cycle usually lasts about 3 weeks. I am also in the midst of making up some glaze tests for some of the terra cotta pieces. In the past, I would have taken a glaze I had used previously and just made up 6000gr. of glaze in a in for a penny in for a pound style impetuousness. I have learned my lesson. In other words, “fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me!”.

To illustrate my early folly, back in the very early 90’s, I happened on a copper red glaze formula. In the next firing, I put several pods in the kiln at varying places. The pods came out incredible, the best copper red I had seen, let alone ever made up. I was sold and made up 10,000 grams of glaze and fired a whole Alpine gas kiln full of porcelain. As I open the kiln, I learned a hard won lesson, never put all of your eggs in one basket. I had nearly a hundred pieces of what everyone was jokingly calling liver ware. The best learned lessons are ones that you have to go through.

I have moved some many times now that I am constantly surprised at the variables that will alter a glaze. In our first big move from Cleveland to NH, as soon as my studio was up and running, I set about throwing terra cotta and making up a few glazes for cone 04. None worked. The variables are many, but one of the main culprits was the use of well water. In my moves I have found how water high in iron, calcium, copper, etc. can alter the slips and glazes and change them beyond recognition.

Now days, I am a bit slower to leap before I look. Staying in the Northeast, I can at least control my clay and glaze materials, but the water source is a big variable. We live now, where we use well water that is both iron and calcium rich. I am trying to alter the glaze accordingly and will test before I go and glaze a kiln load of pots in glazes that I haven’t used since we moved here to Little Falls.

I know this just sounds like common sense, but there is nothing common about it. Some lessons have to be learned the hard way and I am determined not to repeat mistakes that I have made before. More pods, more glaze tests, more test bowls, each a valuable step in proofing glazes that have worked in the past and will hopefully work tomorrow.

THE UBIQUITOUS CHAWAN

I first encountered a chawan when I was in my mid-teens, I was more interested in swords, so it basically went unnoticed until my wife and I went to the BMFA and saw the LIVING TREASURES OF JAPAN exhibit. It was there that we were confronted with chawan unlike any we had seen before. The works of Arakawa Toyozo, Ishiguro Munemaro, Miwa Kyuwa and Nakazato Muan were prominently displayed. Shortly after that the KIKUCHI COLLECTION, JAPANESE CERAMICS TODAY made it to Washington. It was a shock to the system. Though I had no cultural relationship to the chawan or chanoyu, the teabowl itself had captivated my imagination.

I just couldn’t define the impact those two exhibits had on my psyche. I was mesmerized by the seeming simplicity and infinite variety of the chawan. I began an earnest study of the history, form, styles and nuances of the teabowl. I handled every chawan I could and those that were copies of the teabowl made by western potters. In essence the teabowl form had somehow run over my entire being and I began to realize how little I knew.

As collector and potter, I focused on the different sugata (form), kodai (foot), mikomi (tea pool) of any chawan I could handle or look at. Realizing I was not trained in the art of chanoyu, my direction was based on the many interpretations of the form. I wasn’t trapped in the absolutism of traditional convention and was able to, as most western potters are, to make a pot based on the teabowl archetypes.

As I began making pots, I focused on the teabowl as a form to pursue and interpret as I saw it in my mind. Over the years I have worked from cone 04 to cone 14, in stoneware, porcelain, earthenware and terra cotta from electric, gas, wood, salt, soda and raku and along the way, I am always trying to work out different forms, surfaces and designs with the idiom of the teabowl and doubt I have even scratched the surface. It is a fascinating form the shows beyond all other forms the complexity of simplicity.

( The chawan illustrated is a conventional Hagi chawan made by Tanomura Shogetsu, used with permission from a collection.)

TERRA COTTA

Working in terra cotta is so much different than throwing stoneware. It is somewhat more akin to porcelain, but even porcelain seems to have more body than terra cotta. The terra cotta I use, I have been using since the very early 90’s. The formula is based on the terra cotta that Dick Schneider used as CSU. I have my clay body made up for me and though it has its quirks and is tempermental to throw, it works well for me. Once thrown, it tools nicely, can be dried quickly and doesn’t warp unless overly abused. I use the terra cotta for my colorful underglazed pots, slipware, tebori ware and majolica and fire it anywhere from cone 04 to 01.

I spent yesterday afternoon prepping to deal with the terra cotta. I had to mix up various slips and underglazes and will be trying out a series of transparent glazes that I have not used for 5 years. Seems the testing is never done here.

KILN UPDATE

The elements arrived on Friday and I started prep to replace the elements that afternoon. I removed all the pins I could find and separated the kiln rings. On Saturday, I removed the electrical boxes and sniped the crimped connectors and removed the elements and replaced them with new ones.

By 4PM I had the new elements installed and started a cone 06 test fire. The kiln fired even and faster than it has been. Just a little bit of swearing and momentary lapses in sanity and the kiln is like new.

Out of my recent glaze fire, I got an adjusted test glaze out. I have been working on a Ki-Seto style ash glaze with copper accents over and under the glaze. This recent test which is a combo of wood and husk ash has come out somewhat close to what I was after. I am after a wetter, more glistening style of Ki-Seto and not the rougher aburagi style glaze like Hori Ichiro. It needs some work and some fine tuning, but ever journey begins with the first step.

OKABE’S PERSPECTIVE

“Fundamentally, no form or shape exists. The fact that the material itself has a reason for existence is the starting point of my work.”

“Clay acquires meaning only in its relationship to fire and glaze.”

“The connection between the materials-clay, shape and glaze- and the factor called the human being brings about the concreteness of ceramics.”
Okabe Mineo (1919-90)

Okabe Mineo was the son of the legendary Kato Tokuro. Much has been written about Okabe, so I will not extol the history and achievements of his life. Let is suffice to say, he was a master of each style he embraced. His Ko-Seto, Oribe, Shino, Ash glazed and celadon works are among the finest of the 20th century. His use of Oribe was homeric in nature, second to none and in my opinion unparalleled in the 20th century.

(The chawan illustrated is an early Ko-Seto ash glazed piece by Okabe Mineo, circa 1950. This piece is used with the kind permission of a private collection.)