I decided to extend my neriage work into the stoneware, so a while
back, I made up a batch of colored stoneware
and then set about throwing a few teabowls. I glazed these teabowls up in my
saffron glaze (using yellow iron oxide) and they got fired along with a group
of pots a week or so ago. Illustrated is one of the teabowls, front and back.
The actual colored clay has come out a neat brown/black color with fine whitish
speaks, from the fire clay I would imagine. The actual glaze which is normally
an opaque glaze, has run to a translucent, rich amber with areas of
purple-brown where the colored clay has bled and run down the surface of the
pot. There are areas of mossy like running effects around the exterior and the
interior is covered in an opaque iron yellow.
The neriage style I am using is more about bold patterning which I
liken to suminagashi. I am not interested in lots of layers in the clay and am
much more happy with two to five layers running throughout which also means I
need to be careful in the wedging and the intial pull-up when I start to throw
the clay. Though it was not my intention, it somehow reminds me of the works of
the Kawai Kanjiro student, Ueda Tsuneji (1914-1988) and of some of the Fujina
lead glazes. In the back of my mind, I just keep hearing, "what else can
you do with this style?".
"The best way to keep good acts in memory is to refresh them with
new." Cato the Younger (Marcus
Porcius Cato; 95 BC - 46 BC)
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