On any given day of throwing I am prone
to making my teabowls a bit on the large side. This way of working pre-dates my
first experiences with the work of Kumano Kuroemon and was just a natural
occurrence in making functional pots. My early thought process was simple, if
you made a slightly larger teabowl they could still function for use in the tea
ceremony but as a bowl form they had a greater range of uses being a bit larger
from soups & salads to sides, chili, ice cream and almost anything you can
imagine. On Monday as I was sitting at the wheel I had to throw a group of lids
off the hump to go with a series of covered serving bowls and once the group
was thrown I found myself with clay left over that I thought was about two
pounds and proceeded to throw what ended up being a rather large teabowl form.
Once thrown I weighed it out and realized it came in at 2.5lbs and as you can
see, now tooled and a bit lighter it is a bit larger than my normally large
teabowls. I decided to go with a thick combed porcelain slip for the surface
and will likely glaze it in one of my Oribe formulas when the time comes. I am
not sure what the prescribed function of this finished piece will be but it
certainly has sumo-size me written all over it.
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