GEM II

A while back I posted a chaire by Oni-Shino pioneer, Tsukigata Nahiko. The previous chaire was a classic Oni-Shino piece with all of the qualities one should think of when thinking about  the style. The illustrated chaire is a bit different, looking a bit like a seated Daruma character from a Zen painting and hardly recognizable as Oni-Shino. The Shino surface is tinged with ash coating the piece creating a beautiful light blue-green surface with the face of the piece painted where fierce scorching and ash built up. One of Tsukigata's true strengths as a potter was understanding his thick, complex surfaces and their effect on form. The choice of form and varying surface and the possibilities was paramount to his work and if you survey his pots, there is an appropriateness that was carefully created, it may also account for why so many pots were destroyed. The very nature of the violent process would create surfaces that did not marry well with their forms and by necessity, they would meet the hammer. This pot is the perfect blend of form and glaze and like the previous chaire, a wonderful miniature universe the fits into a beautiful silk bag.

WHAT'S IN A NAME

My sister-in-law calls these pots, bean pots, but after all, what's in a name? I make these pots to be used and as for what specific task they are employed, I am not particularly married to one use or another. The important thing is that they are used or at the very least, their use is that they add something to the environment in which they are placed. The form is based on stacked rocks which I saw all over Japan over a number of trips and the way in which it is decorated adds a bit more of me to the pot in the lasting impression I have made on the surface. The overglaze of Shige's Black creates a large cell oil spot appearance and the mirco-crystals of the tessha glaze make for a wonderful surface, especially in the sunlight. In the end, I am not at all hung up on names, more concerned with how the pot performs for the new owners.

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose, By any other name would smell as sweet." From ROMEO & JULIET by William Shakespeare

RAINY WEDNESDAY

It is an overcast and rainy day here and a Wednesday to boot; the weather sets the mood and makes tooling pots a chore as I wait incessantly for them to dry. Days like this create a mood for me and it for some reason brought me back to the 90's thinking about working in Cleveland, Japan and about the east coast here in the States. One song in particular stands out and is certainly a great match for the day and quite possibly one of the most memorable songs of the 1990s, BLACK HOLE SUN, the Soundgarden anthem that was all over the radio and in every CD player at every potter workspace I would visit. It is a great song that has a lot to say about the time and continues to echo its sense of melancholia with purpose even today and to my ear, it typifies the decade. I am sure you may ask yourself, what does this have to do with pottery and my typical Wednesday answer would be; both everything and nothing, this is a rambling blog after all.

Black Hole Sun  acoustic version by Chris Cornell

Black Hole Sun covered by  the Vitamin String Quartet

RISK = REWARD

Up for Monday is a rich and lustrous hiki-dashi-guro tokkuri by Gifu-ken Important Prefectural Cultural Property (2003) and Mino specialist, Ando Hidetake (b.1938). This tokkuri has a pleasant and inviting form with slightly diagonal ribs dividing the piece and making the pot seem a bit bigger than it is. The deep black glaze has a wonderful landscape with a profuse amount of curdling to the surface which helps give the piece a rather timeless appearance. The trick to this glaze is that it must be snatched out of the red hot kiln at precisely the right moment, at the height of the glaze's maturity to create such a perfect black pot. Many a piece shatter due to the extreme shock of going from red-hot temperatures down to the ambient temperature outside of the kiln, it is a risky technique. Though a high risk/reward maneuver, a positive outcome is  bolstered using the right clay and glaze and having decades of experience with the process.

Ando Hidetake is truly a master of many Mino traditions which he learned under the tutelage of ceramic giant, Kato Tokuro. Ando creates exceptional works in Oribe, Shino, Ko-Seto, Ki-Seto and hiki-dashi-guro style Seto-Guro. It is nearly impossible to discuss Mino-yaki without discussing the works of Ando in the same sentence as Suzuki Osamu and Hayashi Shotaro. Though his pottery has a more restrained and understated elegance to that of many of his contemporaries, he has obviously traveled along the route which best fits his style and once you have seen his pottery, the unique and personal qualities of his work are readily identifiable.

"I cannot deny making ceramics is like entering a labyrinth. From selecting the clay to finding it is a simple line into which I must find a way of weaving myself." Ando Hidetake

WABI-WAN

Illustrated is a Shigaraki chawan by Minagawa Takashi (b.1930), the bowl was thrown and hand molded. The potter added a vertical texture about the surface before it was fired in an anagama, creating additional runways for the melting ash to fill and presenting a wonderful feeling in hand. Having studied with his father, Minagawa Kiyotaka, also a Shigaraki potter and the illustrious chajin (tea master) and potter Komori Shoan (1901-1989), Takashi inherited a vast amount of technical and aesthetic knowledge which he put to great use in a style that is readily identifiable as his own work. His pieces have an immediate rustic simplicity (wabi) to them and in many ways harkens back to chawan of the Momoyama and early Edo days though there is also something very contemporary about the forms, surface and attitude of the pottery. Though horizontal, the  texture is very reminescent of the ubiquitous bamboo or reed blinds (sudare) seen all over Japan and in art going back to at least the Heian-jidai. His pottery has been exhibited widely in Japan and he is represented in a number of prestigious galleries but probably his greatest accolade is his dedication to a tradition that is as much based on feudal Shigaraki ware as it is the sensibilities of the way of tea (chanoyu) and the chajin.

HAKEME

I have to admit, I enjoy making covered jars. There is a sense of utility, tradition and history to covered jars and the element of surprise as to what they may contain. Making cap jars, sans knobs or appendages of any kind creates a more streamlined form and in this case, some casual hakeme using a small bundle of straw tied together helps animate the form and activate the surface. The use of my medieval green and clear glaze makes for a nice, lustrous surface that covers the pot in a smooth coat of glass makes the hakeme just tactile enough without being rough. I notched the foot to line up directly with the peak of the cap lid in an effort to tie the whole pot together. It is a simple pot that I hope will find a good home and a myriad of uses.

FUSAJIRO

 

"There is no goodness superior to the goodness of nature", a quote by Kitaoji Rosanjin, yet despite his acceptance of this aphorism, he also understood as an artist and gourmand, creation was about capturing the distilled essence of nature into his creations. The illustrated Iga style bamboo form vase is exactly that, it is all about the essence of bamboo and it cuts out the extraneous details and captures the idea and form in as few movements and lines as possible. Coming to terms with the fact that it is not possible to exceed nature in the creativity game, Rosanjin created bamboo form vases that immediately call to mind what bamboo is to each and every viewer. The vase is not judged on how it mimics the plant but rather how it affects and touches the experiences of those who come in contact with the object and that is truly the mark of an accomplished potter.

IMPRESSED WITH PURPOSE

"Before I talk, I should read a book", so the line goes in one of very few songs about ancient Mesopotamia and I am immediately reminded of one of the oldest pieces of pottery I have ever held and studied. Illustrated is an ancient Sumerian cuneiform foundation stone made sometime between 1953-1935 BC. Hand rolled out of a near bisque terra cotta, the cone then had a lengthy cuneiform inscription impressed into the cone before it was baked. Such pieces were made and then used as decoration in and around the walls of temples, the dedications were intended as a "talisman" to help protect and ensure the longevity of the structures. The dedication itself, it specific to a particular event and this one, though not translated, dates to a specific time from 1953-1935 BC. If objects could talk, I wonder what dramatic adventures this piece of clay would have to tell?

HARMONIOUS

There is something somewhat engaging about a simple object without any affectations or contrivances that manages to exceed one's expectations. Crafted simplicity is an art that runs counter-intuitive in our fast paced world which may make such objects stand out all the more. The chawan illustrated is one of those objects, crafted and fired based on years of experience and ability yet simple in form, the aesthetics engages the viewer in a conversation about pot, potter and self. The act of creating is never a sure bet, but ever so often, everything comes together, like the exceptional harmonious notes of a seasoned orchestra. Furutani Michio had his fair share of exceptional pots, pots of simplicity and brilliance which marry clay, potter and fire; nourishment for the viewer. This Shigaraki chawan is a classic shape made by Furutani, rich surface, a fullness, a palpable tension to the form and just the right amount of kick adding lift off the kodai and with the cooperation of the kiln, a wet landscape painted on the face of the bowl. It may speak of simplicity but how many hours, pots and firings does it take to yield a bowl that is so minimalist with so much to say?

A QUICK FIX

Over the years I have used various copper or Oribe glazes over porcelain and in many cases, it is immediately apparent that alterations are in order. Using the glazes over the pure white surface with little or no iron in the body can lead to a rather bland or washed out surface and being somewhat disappointing. In using porcelain and Oribe together, I have just made slight alteration to the glazes to get a rich and pleasing surface, its not rocket science, but it works none the less and is a quick fix. Without some slight glaze tweaking, I have had a number of pots not come out as I would hope and now I find it best to take the extra effort and make the glaze match the clay or porcelain as it were.

 Illustrated is a small bottle vase with wide flared mouth. The pot was both incised and carved to give the piece some additional sense of dimension in a pattern I call a flame blossom. In between each blossom is a recessed panel that had the surface ticked away to create depth and texture. Out of the bisque, the bottle was glazed in an Oribe and then I brushed an additional layer of glaze over select areas of the pot including around the inside of the mouth to create two distinct visual textures. A momentary addition to the glaze assures the surface I intended as it comes out of the kiln.

"Disappointment is the nurse of wisdom."  Boyle Rouche (1736-1807)

CHOOSING SIDES

Illustrated is a freshly white slipped bottle vase that was thrown round and then paddled as to present two flat panel sides. The paddling is done prior to adding the slip and when the pot has been first tooled and then set up to just the right firmness, I paddle the sides and then use an old credit card as a rib to define the edges of the panels. The slip is applied both on the wheel and by brushing slip on the sides to give the pot a good, even coat. The broad panels serve to break up the continuity of the form as well as giving two flat expanses that beg to be decorated in one fashion or another, the possibilities are nearly endless. Over time I have figured out how to streamline the process and to date, the only thing that gets in my way is having the patience to wait for exactly the right time to alter the form. At this point of my life, I doubt the waiting will get any easier even if the technique has.

"Patience is a minor form of despair, disguised as a virtue." Ambrose Bierce (1842-1913)

VOLUME

According to the dictionary, "volume is the quantity of three-dimensional space enclosed by some boundary", but what this definition is a bit short on creating is a real world perspective of what the volume of something, say a pot, truly means. If you have handled an o-buri chawan by Kumano Kuroemon, you will understand what I am talking about. If you are told the dimensions of his chawan, your mind and experience think, wow, that is a big bowl, but in hand and truly expressing the sense of volume of the pot, your immediate thought is WOW, that really is a big chawan. What really brings this up is that in the past two months, I have had three pots pass through my hands that I knew the dimensions, but in each case as they were unpacked, I was immediately awed by the sense of volume that they contained and the volume of space that they commanded. The three pots, a Kumano chawan, a tall vase by Kaneta Masanao and a stunning hakuji vase by Mashiko veteran, Hirosaki Hiroya. The impressive aspect of each of these pot is not simply about scale and actual volume, rather it is as much about how each command both their physical space and the space in which they are put. Though all objects will have some sense of volume, fewer yet can command the volume in which they are surrounded.

Illustrated is a tall Hagi vase form by kurinuki master, Kaneta Masanao. At over 14" tall, the vessel is impressive and imposing, commanding its space much like an ancient medieval citadel. The pot is glazed in a Shiro-Hagi glaze that has significant areas of blushed pinkish hues over half of the form and vivid areas of intense white speckles interrupting the absolute purity of the form. There are black highlights which define the form and process that peer out from underneath the glaze adding additional definition to the form and at the top of the form and on to one side there is a keyhole style opening cut out to complete the function of the form. In a static photo, volume can be hinted at, but it is only in person that the volume can be felt and fully appreciated.

"The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper."  W.B. Yeats (1865-1939)

AM I BLUE (FUDO)

Illustrated is a blend of ferocity and whimsy as only Sato Katsuhiko is capable. Painting in soft water colors and ink and depicting the Blue Fudo's menacing ire, strength and imposing nature the image and message is meant to compel or force individuals to adhere to the teachings of Buddha. Fudo-myoo (the Immovable Wisdom King), Acala in Sanskrit is a common theme of Katsauhiko's paintings and is rendered in a wide array of stances, colors and themes in his body of work. I am particularly fond of the fiery red ken, sword and the indigo blue hair which adds a wonderful focal point to the image. Among the work of Sato Katsuhiko, it is his evolving and dynamic imagery of Fudo-myoo that best captures the dichotomy of Buddhism; redemption and retribution.