FUN-SIZE

Over the weekend we bought candy for the impending knock on the door which signals that Halloween is upon us again. We decided on two ceramic pieces for the candy, one a large lip bowl in temmoku and iron glazes and on the shelves near the door this recently fired small Oribe style covered jar. The contents give a sense of the scale to anyone familiar with the "fun-size" candy bars and also points out the function and practicality of hand made pots, especially when chocolate is involved. This covered piece held the contents of one 11 ounce bag with some room to spare, in other words, it is a good size and rather accommodating for any of your favorite treats. Happy Halloween.

PUZZLE BOX

I have mentioned in previous blog post how it is not really possible to overpack a pot for shipping so when a pot or box arrives damaged I just can't help but feel somewhat responsible for setting the circumstance in motion. I recently had a somewhat heavy wood fired pot sent my way and as the piece was not packed securely enough within the wood box it acted like a bowling ball in a balsa cube and just demolished the box. All told, the box arrived in 11+ pieces, not including the signed lid which escaped without so much as a scratch, but the rest of the box was more akin to a puzzle box or a fallen Humpty Dumpty than a storage box for the pot. After examining the damaged remains for a bit I decided to try to reassemble the box as best I could with limited carpentry skills and little more than wood glue, craft twine, small nails, a hammer, paintbrush and a razor knife. I carefully reconstructed the bottom first and once together and dry attached each side wall, most in several pieces. I will admit, I cheated a bit using four very small nails to reinforce the sides as well as four on the base reattaching the base to the walls, all of which would have been traditionally done using small wood pegs. After three sessions, with glue dry and joints sanded, I replaced the cord and though obviously a bit out of sorts, the box was reconstructed. Ultimately I will suggest having a base box made to fit the lid but for the time being, the pot has a storage box and what was broken has been restored, well, more or less.

WORK IN PROGRESS

From time to time I intentionally make lidded pots without their lids to see what I can come up with using other materials or even found objects. In the past I have used wood, copper, tin, aluminum, cast acylic but wood seems to be the most natural especially when making mizusashi inspired water jars. The accompanying work in progress video slideshows shows the simple steps getting the lid correctly fit, sanded, prepped, "painted" and having the knob attached. Since I am not a wood worker by any stretch of the imagination, getting the lid cut in a perfect (?) circle is beyond my skillset and tools on hand so a friend of a friend, a cabinet maker provided the blank and I set about carefully sanding the piece to fit exactly in to the gallery. The upper part of the edge is sanded to a round contour and the bottom has a bevel to match the pot. This is not my first use of a "homemade" wood lid and not likely be my last but I think it adds a distinct look to the pot that a ceramic lid or a bought, commercial mizusashi lid would fail to provide. Thanks for watching.

WALL SPACE

Measuring in at just about 22" across, this handmade cryptomeria wood panel and large tile look wonderful over a doorway. The large tile is made of a dense stoneware clay and was then decorated using iron slip and a thin layer of Shino glaze to create this panel which read, NO (the second kanji from the word Shino) despite having a slight enso feel to it. Tsukigata Nahiko made quite a number of these calligraphic tiles and I have seen a lot of them in this style of traditional wood mounts made from cryptomeria japonica cypress with the tansu or screen style hardware around the corners, there is also a number of more free from, all natural frames in which a square recess was cut out to accommodate the tile. What I can say about these tiles is that they have a tremendous amount of intensity to them and the tile is solid, having real substantive weight which when balanced out with the lighter weight cypress frame makes the piece manageable and easy to hang. All you need to do is find the right place to hang it despite the lack of the precious commodity of wall space and enjoy!

GORO-ORIBE

Over the past decade or so I have spent a lot of time looking at the various types and styles of Oribe from the rich, bright greens, to the coral based Narumi, the playful and graphic Yashichida all the way to the feudal and powerful Kuro-Oribe pieces. Looking at all this pieces, old and new I am continually impressed with the wide array of decoration and designs used on the pieces, especially the bold designs based on textiles. The illustrated Kuro-Oribe chawan is one such bowl where the inspiration for the decoration is likely to have come from old textile patterns but with Suzuki Goro, who knows, the idea could have come from a food wrapper or some graffiti dreamed up out of his own mind's eye. Looking a bit like to large, abbreviated moving mandala, the decoration compliments the rhythm of the form and contrast well against the framed area of buff which highlights the brushwork. Though the playfulness and execution of the decoration may seem casual and extemporaneous, I suspect it was the nearly 50 years of doing, making, painting that creates a bowl that is just so appropriate, wouldn't you agree?

"Put your heart, mind, intellect and soul even to your smallest acts. This is the secret of success."  Swami Sivinanda

鯱鉾

From time to time I find myself doing some calligraphy as the mood hits me, though Japanese inspired, I am a huge fan of the abstract expressionists and would like to think there is a mix of both East and West in what I do. I use both ink sticks and bottled ink in a wood fired suzuri that I have made for myself but I always find myself using a small cup for my suiteki as I have never bought one. This brings me to my recent purchase on e#ay in which I found a rather cool Shigaraki suiteki for a price I couldn't resist, $10 and nearly two months later it finally arrived. The suiteki is a molded piece, made and fired in Shigaraki by Kawai Koji and works just as I would expect with no dribbles and a nice flow. I have seen a number of kogo and suiteki by this potter as well as some of his smaller thrown pots and his subject matter runs from the various zodiac subjects to tanuki, small huts and minka, floral design and the shachihoko just like the one that recently arrived. To those unaware, a shachihoko is a mythical beast with the head of a tiger and the body of a carp and is associated with the ability or properties to protect things from fire which is the reason there are large sculpture of these beasts on either side of the main roof of Osaka Castle. This suiteki is a fun, useful piece that has been a pleasure to use and look at and I hope this short slideshow video conveys that.

LINE INLAY

I am still working out a rather easy, straight forward technique for creating line inlay on pieces and though the bowl illustrated is a bit simple, the idea of the design is beginning to work out just the way I see it. My original premise was to be able to create thin line designs using glaze inlaid in to another glaze, in this case the base is temmoku and the inlay is of a clear glaze that has turned to a bright amber due to the influences of the oxides in the base. The technique is simple enough, first the pot is glazed in temmoku and using ink I draw out the design then wax over the surface where the design is to be inlaid. Once the wax is dry, I scratch through the surface of the wax all the way down to the bisque using a nail I altered and then brush over the inlay glaze. I know, there is nothing ground breaking here but it allows for a thin line design to be created with almost no effort at all. The technique works so well that it is also easy to even write all over the pot which given the right circumstances may be just what a customer ordered.

RUSTY SPOTS

I put together this short video slideshow of this uncomplicated and near perfect yuteki-temmoku tsubo to give a glimpse into what it looks like from a foot or so away. Made by yuteki and tetsu specialist, Hisada Shigeyoshi, this tsubo was expertly thrown and then glazed to show off a rich, dark, blue-black background covered in a vast array of rusty spots that punctuate the form. The majority of the spots seem to be in about four different sizes but it is the large spots around the inside of the mouth that really pull the viewer in, beckoning a further investigation into the interior which is also covered in spots which peer out like stars in some distant galaxy. Though simple in form, the rich and complex surface creates a dialogue that is both quiet and lasting, long after the pot is boxed and put away.

IMPASTO FUJI

Like most people who live with hand made things, over the years we have traded for or collected a number of prints and paintings from both American and Japanese artists. Our Japanese print taste runs along the lines of Mori Yoshitoshi, Oda Mayumi, Clifton Karhu and the obligatory Saito Kiyoshi, more modern artists and though we have a few Nihonga, Rimpa and Zenga kakejiku scrolls and water colors it wasn't until my first introduction to the paintings of Tsukigata Nahiko that I ever considered owning an oil painting. I saw my first Tsukigata painting in 1991 or 1992 while in Japan, it was a really large painting of a Notre Dame in Paris that filled the wall of a reception room in a famous hotel in Osaka. I was in awe of the scale, grandeur and power of the painting but it was the vibrant surface which seemed alive and the thick texture that had me sold. Now don't get me wrong, having seen great paintings of a variety of museums, I would take a Monet, Homer or Church any day but like his ceramics, I find the painting of Tsukigata engaging with a power and manner that speaks to me on almost every level.

Illustrated is a painting of Fuji-yama by Tsukigata Nahiko that was painted in the late 80s or early 90s. I love the way he has captured the snow capped Fuji with the whole image being created in a rather fluid and dynamic impasto style bringing the piece into three dimensions and almost a tactile as his pottery.

FBOFW

Illustrated is the foursome of covered jars that I made several weeks back, for better or for worse. After they were glazed and literally at the last moment I decided to put wadding between top and bottom which in the end saved three of the four pieces from becoming permanently fixed paper weights. I took small, snake like ribbons of wadding and put it at four spots on each of the pieces and it turned out that it was needed on three of the pots, the yellow iron sunset didn't show and hint of running but the Oribe and Ao+ certainly did as the thick, rich glaze rolls will attest. Considering these pieces were made as an after thought and as pieces of the puzzle in loading the kiln, I am pleased with the feedback from the surfaces and carving and they will make for almost any task that you can think up including, but not limited to candy dishes, a plus in my book.

YOU'VE SEEN ONE

I have been very fortunate to have seen a number of potters, both Western and Eastern make teabowl and in doing so also trim or cut a foot in to their pieces. I have been very surprised over the years that when watching potters make Japanese chawan or Japanese inspired teabowls, the approaches are very similar; the use of a single tool and the slow rotation on a banding wheel of sorts. I am certainly not saying that the methods are identical but it is usually only the subtle, attentive details that set apart potters and their feet from one another. Watching potters like Suzuki Goro, Tsujimura Shiro, Kohyama Yasuhisa, Matsuzaki Ken, Suzuki Osamu and others, the formula seems to be the same with just enough idiosyncratic input to differentiate the works of potters dedicated to making chawan. There are of course, exceptions, some extreme when watching potters like Kakurezaki Ryuichi and Kato Tsubusa cut their kodai, but all in all the basic purpose and qualities are necessary to complete the teabowls, so only the individual nuances seperate kodai from potter to potter. I don't want to give the impression that if you've seen one, you've seen them all as each potter creates a kodai from the blank canvas of his piece which is revealed through well practiced cuts, removing clay and blending the positive and negative space that best supports their vision of the chawan.

The accompanying photo is of the kodai celadon specialist, Kato Tsubusa. Cut and almost hacked out of the porcelain  he works with, this is one of the extremes in the dealing with a kodai. As you study the foot, it may look simple in the execution but I would suggest trying it before making any sound judgements. On second thought, best to try several thousand first.

FOR EVERY SEASON

I am amazed sometimes that an act as simple as changing a lid on a pot can make a really impactful difference. Illustrated is two distinct views of a kofuki style mizusashi by Takahashi Samon; on the left with the ceramic lid and on the right with a custom made lacquer one, both creating a striking visual presentation, literally a mizusashi for every season or at least two season. The mizusashi is a classic surface by Takahashi and as you can see both lids compliment the piece in distinct ways, adding to the dramatic movement of the pot established by the crisp, twisted planes that rise from foot to mouth creating a sense of perpetual motion. The smoky, meandering patterns created in the slip, move along the twisting fields adding to the animation of the mizusashi and add a hint of mystery and contemplation making the piece that much more engaging. Adding to the visual appeal of the pot is the adventure that this pot undertook before arriving here, this is the pot that I recounted in a previous blog post entitled; ODDS AGAINST in which the package went missing and when it finally did arrive it looked as if it had been savaged at sea, crushed, mushed and soaking wet but the contents emerged safe and sound. This is one of those pieces that sticks in your mind not only for the wonderful conversationalist that it is but also for the perilous venture it braved like a ceramic version of Homer's ODYSSEY.

FOURSOME

Illustrated is the foursome of covered jars that I made several weeks back. Ironically they came out of a bisque this morning and have now been glazed though I am unsured when they will be fired. I have two kiln loads of terra cotta pieces that have priority and am in the midst of glazing them and plan on loading the kiln this evening. The four stoneware jars have been glazed in Oribe, saffron iron and Ao+ along with a few temmoku and medieval green summer style teabowls. I have found that it is easier to glaze pots in smaller batches as I don't end up rushing and making mistakes as well as some bad decisions. I am hoping to get my stoneware and porcelain pieces glazed and fired sometime next week and will post up a few of the jars once fired provided they survive the whole adventure.

A perfect foursome;