IGA TEBACHI

The is just something magical about  wood-fired pots and this Iga-yaki tebachi, handled bowl, is certainly not exception. You have to admire the way the slight upgrade in the lip which borders the bowl, acted as a barrier, collecting the ash as it was forced past the pot in the velocity of the fire, pooling to frame the pot in a rich green bidoro. Though the lip acted as a dam, the build up  pushed the ash, cascading into the form creating  streams which pooled in the center and created this glassy surface. Once again the simplicity of the tebachi, belie the experience and engineering that went into the pot, knowing just where to create certain lines and where to put the pot in the kiln. In this case, the experience and know how is from master Iga potter, Kojima Kenji and the simple pot is the culmination of trial and error and a great many years of making pots, studying Ko-Iga and wrestling a degree of control out of the flame which help define these pots as modern day Iga-yaki. Looking at this piece, it is easy to see the poetic nature of the fire, written static on the  pot's surface in dazzling green bidoro.