THIRD TIME A CHARM

Using a group of photos that I had taken a while back, I assembled this slideshow video of a classic and well fired Oni-Shino hanging vase by Tsukigata Nahiko. There is a wide variety of surface elements to be seen on this piece from a rich interplay of iron and Shino to the effects created from the natural ash that has painted the surface of the vase.  The gourd form is highlighted by a strong form, visible throwing marks and two carved areas on the front of the pot, top and bottom. I have written about this vase in two previous blog posts regarding Tsukigata and hope the third time is the charm.

SEIJI-SHINO

Having the form and posture of a well worn wooden mallet, this Shino pot is by veteran Mino potter, Yamada Seiji. The form is classic and well conceived with the flaring outward base and the same in reverse for the neck of the pot. The glaze, which I refer to as Seiji-Shino is wonderful with rich tones of reddish orange punctuate the form from top to bottom and the texture created by varying thickness of glaze with cells, fissures and pocks creating a distant and  somewhat alien landscape. Though many potters make and use Shino and many of their glazes look similar, there is a uniqueness to Yamada's glaze, a blend of the shiny and muted within the feldspar surface and textures that are recognizable as his work. The real beauty of the pots of Yamada Seiji is his ability to make simple pots crafted with careful details and beautiful glazes that have a great deal to say when filled with tea, flowers and food.

"Good Vases have free style shapes. They also make flowers much more beautiful and lively. Every time you arrange flowers with them, you can get new excitement." A quote from THE BEAUTY OF SHINO by Yamada Seiji

BLUE IS BLUE

Illustrated is a prototype of a blue on blue (blue²) cup with a bottom heavy foot that I made at the request of a customer. The intent was that it could sit well and the extra weight would keep the conical form from tipping over. The walls of the bowl are rather thin and even with liquid in the pot, it is rather steady and sure footed. The blue² is not exactly 100% accurate as the vellum glaze is made using copper and the streaky, runny blue is made using cobalt, either way, they both turn blue in the firing. I always enjoy making copper blues in oxidation from Persian blues to these vellum blues making for a range of blues that run from the soft tones to the harsh and they are a fraction of the price of using cobalt. In the end it doesn't matter how you get there, blue is blue.

IT'S COLD

It is cold, how cold? Well it is too cold to work in the studio with temperatures hovering at -10 at night and +7 during the day. It has made it as low as -21 at the house with the official temperature listed at -20 and yes I am aware this is a widespread situation and not solely concerning my neck of the woods. The issue is that my studio is under our house which is built into the side of a hill and is totally unheated. The temperature normally stays between 58 and 65 all year round and for use during the winter, I have two small electric/oil space heaters which work fine. However when it stays this cold for this long the temp drops into the mid-40s making it too difficult to work with wet clay and your hands constantly in water. The cold also dramatically affects the drying cycle and knobs crack, attachments crack, some s-crack and others warp. It is officially a no-clay zone until it warms up a bit.

I have a friend who recently uprooted from the mid-west and moved to San Diego. In an attempt at internet humor and possibly just a bit to annoy, he send along photos of the weather, flora, ocean and magnificent sunsets to let everyone know, San Diego is the greatest place on earth and to rub the cold weather in my face as well. He has kept up on the current northeast weather and is also sending along Henny Youngman caliber cold jokes and jpegs of San Diego basking in the sun along with some of the unusual sights he encounters on his walks. Sometimes, it just doesn't pay to have a friend with a similar sense of humor.

(Photo courtesy of a San Diegan)

MORE INLAY

There is not much I can say about this classic Kondo Yutaka inlaid cylinder vase other than it is quite rich and presents a distinctive impression with the contrast and movement of the black and white surface being highly animated. Drawing from a long history of aesthetics, Kondo Yutaka has managed to combine the old while always looking forward creating a unique blend immediately recognizable like a signature in clay.

Al Stewart; NOSTRADAMUS

ANOTHER GEM

What is a gem? The dictionary describes it as follows; 1) a precious or sometimes semi-precious stone cut and polished for ornament 2) something prized especially for great beauty or perfection (excellence) 3) a highly prized or well-beloved person. Can this term, gem really be used as an adequate description of a pot, well I certainly think so but I am admittedly biased. The illustrated piece is in my book a textbook gem, it is a chaire by Tsukigata Nahiko that used to belong to a friend of mine. Though many may consider it Oni-Shino, I would classify it as Ko-Shino where the thin Shino is infused with ash and the shoulder has areas of rich brown textured and the runs are glassy, ending in bidoro. It is a dramatic and poetic pot that is housed in a tea masters signed box with three compartments for the three luxuriant shifuku accompanying the package. Though I am sure what comes to mind for most when speaking about gems is diamonds, sapphires, emeralds and rubies, this is what I think about when someone mentions gems around me.

"There are little gems all around us that can hold glimmers of inspiration."  R. Mead

OUCH

I don't think it is possible to stress how important proper packing can be. Without taking every precaution a pot can be reduced to a pile of shards in an instant as the photo can attest. I recently had this nice Shigaraki chawan sent to me pending identification and stressed how important diligent packing was and the pot was basically put in its box with a ripped up piece of bubblewrap and this is how it arrived. The bowl was basically minimally protected by the bubblewrap but was loose inside the woodbox which allowed it to play out its own version of pinball across the country. A few extra seconds and pieces of wrap or tissue would have saved this bowl. It may be apparent how I feel about pottery by now and that this happens to a piece is both disappointing and frustrating with a slight pinch of guilt, afterall we are simply curators of this stuff holding on to it until the next person takes over. I am hoping next time that I sound like a broken record and ask the sender to please take every precaution to pack a pot so that it is well packed inside the wood box without any play or movement and the same within the shipping package that the pot will arrive just as it left, safe and sound and in one contiguous piece.

For anyone interested, here is a blog post that outlines how I pack pots for travel. Though this is not a perfect method, it has served me well over more than 25 years;

http://albedo3studio.blogspot.com/2010/09/packing-for-travel.html

FIRST ATTEMPTS

Illustrated is a simple slipware teapot that I just converted from slides to digital images. This was one of my first attempts at making kohiki slip ware and I am sure it would have turned out much better had it been wood fired. This piece was first dipped in a kohiki style slip and then glazed in a clear glaze that was based on wood and nuka ash. It has a rather pleasing surface that shows all the throwing marks as well as any marks left in the slip from fingermarks to drips and the clear glaze has a citrus peel texture reminiscent of some Shino glazes. In later pots I added black overglaze as well as cobalt brushwork to help animate the surface but this pot seemed fine, just the way it is. I have yet to woodfire any of these pots but look forward to the opportunity one of these days, maybe Jim can help me out.

NON ITINERIBUS

To say our first trip to Japan (1990) was not exactly well planned out would be an understatement. We flew in to Osaka in late mid-November and made our way to Kyoto by shuttle. In what can only be described as tourist hubris I assumed my ability to read kanji and speak a few necessary lines of Japanese would be fine and we would wing our itinerary. This worked well in Kyoto, Osaka and Nara while visiting museums, temples, shops, galleries and other must see places but not so much in our first trek to Shigaraki to meet with various potters. We departed Kyoto by train, transferred to bus and made our way along the winding roadway to Shigaraki where it had begun raining for which we were totally unprepared. We visited a few shops in town and wandered up the road in the direction I suspected Furutani Michio had his studio only to realize we had no idea what so ever where we were or where to go and it was all of 9:30am.

What we did notice was that we found ourselves standing in front of a very nice Japanese home, walled in with a decorative  fence and with a simple sign reading, Honiwa Rakunyu. Not sure what to do we stood there for a while, in the rain, like complete foreigners when luckily a young woman came out and asked us, in English, if we were lost. We explained what our intent was, to visit Shigaraki potters and she asked us into the house had us sit down and her mother brought us tea and sweets, each skewered with little sharpened sticks, complete with their bark. After about 15 minutes or so, Keiko Okuda (nee Honiwa) told us she would act as our guide for the day and had appointments made to see Ueda Naokata, Otani Shiro, Furutani Michio, Kohyama Yasuhisa, Takahashi Rakusai, Takahashi Shunsai, Tani Seiemon and several others. We were exceptionally fortunate to have ended up at exactly the right place at the right time and meet such a wonderful family and our surprise guide.

After we made our way around Shigaraki, the Honiwa family prepared us a very late lunch/ early dinner and we meet her father, Honiwa Rakunyu. Dressed in traditional Japanese haori and hakama he showed us around his studio, kiln and showroom, showing us secret treasures from his private collection as well as pieces on display for sale. Though a bit stoic, he was animated and gracious and very pleased that these foreigners who showed up out of the blue had a keen interest in his chadogu and Shigaraki pottery. He presented (presento) us with a well fired tanuki kogo and guinomi both in their signed boxes. We had selected a wonderful and noble chaire to purchase with an exceptional bag made by Keiko for her father's chaire. It was a fitting memento for an experience we will never forget, a simple act of Shigaraki serendipity.

Illustrated is avery nice example of Shigaraki chaire by Honiwa Rakunyu II (1929-2002). Made in the early 1990s, we recently found this piece on a ubiquitous auction website and we were immediately brought back to that moment in November of 1990 when we first saw his work. Honiwa Rakunyu II, though not a native of Shigaraki moved there and studied with Honiwa Rakunyu I, succeeded to the name in 1962 and set a studio and a noborigama, later building his first anagama in 1971 which he  named, Kochu-gama. Though Rakunyu II made a wide array of Shigaraki ware he specialized in chadogu tea wares and it shows in his mizusashi and chaire in particular. At first glance his pots would also seem to have a sense of stoicism to them, like the maker, but there is a nobility and grace to their forms and surfaces. I have always found these pots to be simple, contemplative objects that reward the viewer who takes the time to study and listen to what each piece has to say.

YURIKO II

I found this photo searching around the web and was struck by the contrast of the milky ashy grey surface with the vivid red (yuriko) that punctuates the design on either side of the bowl. There is an undeniable mastery to Kawai's brushwork and his ability to manipulate space with his design and decoration, few if any are as capable. In a few experienced strokes, the pots breathes life and blends ceremony, function and presentation without a moment's hesitancy. As I look at his pots I can help but think how modern they must have seen at the time and now though they can be used to measure the modern pottery movement, they are positively timeless, they echo the past and present in this moment. If Kawai were alive today in more than just spirit, his pots would still continue to confront, engage and captivate the viewer with  a simple conversation about the present.

"I have realized that the past and the future are real illusions, that they exist only in the present, which is what there is and all there is."  Alan Watts (1915-1973)

IRON ON IRON

Illustrated is a sleek thrown and altered oval baker form with lugs at each end and lobed in the center, front and back. Glazed in iron on iron, the decoration creates a sense of quadrants that coincides with the lobes and ends of the piece. I like making these pieces going all the way back to the early 90s after seeing both Ron Meyers and Jeff Oestriech create ovaled pieces, the former, casual, immediate and direct and the later exacting, well thought out and precise. Taking from both schools of creation, there is always room for both in one's vocabulary, this one being tighter and more structural, the details are added to accentuate the form and highlight its mode of manufacture. Truth be told, after all the wheel throwing I have done it is great to break the routine and take a thrown cylinder and cut, paste, fold and mutilate. Just another aspect of making pots.

"The less routine the more life."  Amos Bronson Alcott (1799-1888)

TORUKO-AO HACHI

Illustrated is a wonderful Persian blue shallow bowl (Toruko-ao hachi) on a pedestal foot by Ningen Kokuho; Kato Takuo. The rim is decorated with flowers and birds while the center depicts a noble Persian prince astride an Arabian stallion, the black underglaze has a slight blue hue to it as it peers through the rich glaze. I have seen a large number of Kato Takuo's toruko-ao pots and each one has a sense of ageless nobility to them and though heavily decorated, each one has an appropriateness showing no signs of an heavy handiness. Kato new exactly how much design/decoration a pot could handle and what was needed to depict his intent and never wasted a single brush stroke. For Kato Takuo, like so many other potters, big things are still made up of all the minute details.