With the perfect pigment and
brush and a well practiced hand, the decoration on this Egaratsu chawan seems
tailor made for this pot, creating motion and both accentuating the horizontal
natural of the form and adding wispy hints to allude to the vertical. Made by
Maruta Munehiko (b.1961) this chawan sums up what Egaratsu is about with this
pot easily identifiable as that style. Maruta grew up around clay as his father,
Maruta Masami was a famous folk potter before going on to study with Hamada Atsuya,
third son of Hamada Shoji before returning home to Karatsu to set up his own
studio. Using a number of local clays and in various Karatsu styles, Maruta
create a rich and diverse array of pottery of which the Egaratsu is among my favorite.
Even in a field, crowded by a number of potters and pots it would be hard to
just walk by this bowl without having the feeling that it needs to be picked up
and brought home with all due haste.
"In the brush doing what
its doing, it will stumbles on what one couldn't do by oneself." Robert Motherwell
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