FOUR SEASONS

The weather has finally changed here and it would seem that spring has finally sprung. For the past three weeks, the Canadian geese have been flying north, in small groups early on and through some blinding snow storms, but now there are huge flocks, numbering into the thousands. Given this past winter, I will not be at all sorry to see spring take hold in the Mohawk Valley; it will be good to see green everywhere. After all, who doesn't like green?

A friend recently sent me a jpeg of another Sato Katsuhiko pottery piece. This one not thrown by Sato, is decorated on a white slipped body and decorated in iron at the center in his ever familiar design of Jizo-bosatsu. The hachi is then flanked by four bold and rich kanji; FUYU, NATSU, HARU and AKI, the ideograms for winter, spring, summer and fall; the four seasons. I am a huge fan of Sato's painted works, they are playful and direct, spontaneous and insightful and immediately put me in mind of the cycle of seasons which he has captured in such sparse  and lyrical decoration.