YAKISHIME

I like being surprised by a potter and his work and this particular mizusashi is no exception. At first glance you have to think, Shigaraki, more or less modern but you would be wrong. This yakishime style mizusashi was made by Kyoto ash specialist, Kimura Morinobu and just shows more of his versatility, creating works thoroughly mashiko and a bit afield from that tradition. This mizusashi certainly has the Shigaraki vibe with its simple, cylindrical form, pad shadows where the pot rested during the firing, nice hi-iro flashing and a healthy dusting of ash about the form. I enjoy the works of Kimura Morinobu very much from his creative use of ash glazes, his highly visible and textured surfaces and now I can add his unglazed, wood fired yakishime pottery. As I mentioned, I like being surprised by the range and reach of a potter, it keeps the works fresh and keeps the viewer guessing and on their toes.

"It takes all sorts to make a world." Old English Proverb

g+g²= t&a

In my last cycle working with stoneware and porcelain I decided to vary the throwing of teabowls a bit and made a group of thrown and altered pieces. I ended up with a few in the round, but the majority ended up being altered square, rectangular, triangular and lobed with either plain combed slip or slip and the addition of geometric devices added prior to glazing. I ended up using the Zen decoration of circles, squares and triangles on several of the pieces to emphasize the geometry of the forms with geometric symbols. I carried the geometric theme to the feet as well, I tooled several in a more traditional, round foot while others were hand cut into triangles and squares to echo the forms. It is alsways enjoyable to take a break for the round and round rhythm of most days and cycles to make things that end up out of round and I thought I would never have a use for the geometry classes that I doodled through.

SHAKEN NOT STIRRED

Mining the very depth of playfulness, which is at the heart of the Oribe origins, Ikeda Shogo (b.1976) is equally at home with clay and potters wheel as he is with a brush and his wonderful designs which he has shaken up just a bit. This particular Narumi-Oribe style chawan is well thrown and the painted imagery which includes traditional devices as well as written English, trucks, cows and even a light bulb captures the essence of what is Oribe in modern times. His work is delightfully functional and at times visually provocative engaging the viewer and acting as both invitiation and inquisition regarding how and what we think of modern chadogu. Despite growing up in Kagoshima, Ikeda specializes in a variety of Oribe styles and what is readily apparent is that despite where he was born or works, he has grasped the very heart of this modern tradition and bent it to fit his own vision.

LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON

I just had this set of Iga chawan show up by father and son, master and pupil; Tanimoto Kosei and his son, Tanimoto Kei. The pair share a number of similarities like size,the fact they are wood fired and both feel very good in the hand where they differ is in both clay and posture. The chawan by Tanimoto Kosei, seen on the left is a brighter pot having been thrown out of a white stoneware clay with a defiantly wonky posture that begs to be picked up while the piece by Tanimoto Kei, on the right is thrown out of a coarser stoneware clay, has a darker complexion and a more formal stance. I am not sure that Tanimoto Kosei has received enough credit for his pioneering attempts to revitalize Igayaki in the pre and post-war years, having made pottery for decades, teaching a wide array of pupils who are now the protectors and innovators of the Iga tradition including his son, Kei. Though there are obvious difference between these two chawan, what does spring to mind is the age old axiom, "like father, like son".

You can see more photos of these two Tanimoto chawan over at my trocadero marketplace;
https://www.trocadero.com/stores/albedo3studio/items/1377031/PAIR-IGA-CHAWAN-BY-TANIMOTO-KOSEI-KEI

DEJA TWO-VU

Admittedly, I am not a photographer, basically I am a guy with a white or black backdrop, a bulb and a simple digital camera which does 99% of the work, in other words, I point and shoot. Possibly the only way I get half way decent photos is that I take the time to take lots and lots of photos, for some pieces I have taken well over a hundred shots and end up with perhaps 30 or so on a good day. That leads me to this illustration, a 2-Vu of a piece that recently came my way, a wonderfully rustic and casual Kondo Seiko kohiki chawan with the most relaxed posture I have seen in some time. I was struggling to get the camera to focus correctly on the white surface and switched to black to see what differences it would make and here are the results. I was a bit stunned by how different the photos are using all the same settings and lighting between the black and white backgrounds and after fussing around for some time, each show the chawan in an entirely different light. The black background played on the shadowing and disappearance of the form as it moves away from the central focus while the white back drop clearly picked up all the the keshiki, activities in the slip and glaze and the hues of color on the otherwise, stark white chawan. Both tell a unique story but at a certain level the stories are as different as MOBY DICK is from A TALE OF TWO CITIES, though I like both photos from what they say, I think I prefer the photo of the bowl bowl behind door #2.

HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY II

This altered lip bowl came out of a firing recently and I took this impromptu photo which for some reason shows off the iron glaze as a deep, rich green, more so than normal. I suspect the lighting intensified the coloring which is a bit more subdued than it appears here but it certainly shows off how much the glaze runs and many of the subtle and not so subtle characteristics that show up including the speckling of shiny iron crystals that appear on the surface. One interesting feature of the glaze run is at the interior, bottom of the bowl which is not almost flat, like a still pool where the glaze has collected and filled in the soft curve that was  thrown into the piece. Though this is not 100% accurate in depicting this bowl, I thought it a good idea to use the photo which high lights and showcases some of the qualities of the surface that rarely shows up in most photos I take of these temmoku and yellow iron glazes pots.

WHITE OUT

We have had our share of weather here for the past two weeks being on the fringe of the three seperate Nor'easters that have hit this region but today the sun is out creating a virtual white out as the treees, ground and building are covered in snow and the drips of the melt can be seen and heard every where. The mood as you look out the windows made me think back on a wonderous Miwa Kyusetsu Hagi chawan owned by a friend of mine. It is broad, generous and full of spirit as it creates its own visual white out as you survey the form with hints of the rich daido clay peaking through crawling in the glaze and at the foot where the glaze is either thinning or non-existent. I really like this chawan, though large it is not as large as some of Kyusetsu's (Jyusetsu) later more sculptural and statement oriented pieces, the crawling is just the right amount of activity to activate and animate the surface and the posture of the chawan, foot and lip all present a form directed by purpose and a particular aesthetic. Thanks to the  intimate scale of this chawan, I can't help but see a snow covered universe held firmly in one's hands.

TO THE TEST

Over the past couple of years or so I have emailing back and forth with a collector living in Japan discussing Kumano, every day using pots and also Fujioka Shuhei. He recently sent me this photo of a very well fired Iga tokkuri and guinomi by Fujioka that both culminate in wonderful areas of glaze runs and bidoro drips in which his firing technique seem to defy logic. Though both are classical Fujioka pots and composed of a compressed and compact spirit, they have slightly restrained forms compared to some of his most recent work which is high lighted by areas of large facets and angular cuts about the surface, these appear more comfortable to the hand and lip. This set just exudes a  welcoming sense of function and it is easy to imagine using these pieces especially during the height of summer where the cool appearance coupled with a nice cold sake compliment each other and put the duo to the test.

"Pure logic is the ruin of the spirit." Saint-Exupery
 

STRETCHED OUT BLUES

A few weeks back I posted up a greenware teabowl made out of a new test clay. Up to that point and through the bisque, the clay seemed to hold up quite well and illustrated is the finished product. Now I will certainly admit, this is an odd teabowl and probably more than a bit tricky to use, but in terms of how the clay responded along the way, I have absolutely no complaints. I took a number of photos of the piece at each stage of the process to track the amount of variance caused by warping and loss of shape overall and have been very surprised that from greenware to finished piece there was no warping and the form stayed just as it was made other than the  normal and expected shrinkage. So the finished teabowl was glazed in the Ao+ which shows off the slip and areas of clay where the body was exposed during the combing. I guess I can't complain hitting on a new clay body to use with very few tests and zero failures along the way, now on to larger pots!

DIOSPYROS KAKI

Back in 1985 there was a rather wonderful exhibition of the pottery of Imai Masayuki at the PEABODY MUSEUM of SALEM which showcased the broad variety of his work from zogan inlay pieces, underglaze painted wares and even Jun style pottery. Despite the variety, there is a thread which binds his works together including the painted pieces which give a different face to his somewhat graphic style. The underglaze pieces were painted with cobalt, iron and other oxides before having a soft, white glaze or Shino put over them creating design and decoration quite separate from the precision of his inlaid, wood fired pots. Illustrated is such a pot where he has first incised a design and then added colored washes of cobalt and iron to accentuate the persimmon, the "divine fruit" design created on the mizusashi. The vivid decoration livens up the simple form and soft white surface making for a pot that is enjoyable to have a nice, long conversation with, perhaps over a cup of tea.

MADARA-KARATSU

I don't know a lot about the maker of this mizusashi, but according to his bio, Kojima Yoshiaki specializes in Karatsu pottery of which this piece is a very nice example. Thrown and then furrowed, this pot is covered in a very nice Madara-Karatsu glaze with accnets of iron on the face, the overall surface has a wide array of colors, tones and a sheen that gives the piece a rather serene appearance. The foot is just wonderfully dealt with with a crinkly surface, great shell-wad marks and glaze running toward the bottom of the piece. There is a very similar example in the book; MODERN JAPANESE CERAMICS on page 75, no. 54 though I think this example is just as fine as the one illustrated. All in all this is a rather classic example of Madara-Karatsu pottery and a great piece of contemporary chadogu.

You can see more photos of this mizusashi on my Trocadero page:

https://www.trocadero.com/stores/albedo3studio/items/1375914/MADARA-KARATSU-MIZUSASHI-BY-KOJIMA-YOSHIAKI

B&A II

A couple of firings ago, I made a series of small slipped and combed covered jars in amber, Oribe and Ao+ glazes and when seaching for some photos I noticed I had a before and after photo of the same jar showing it from a nearly identical perspective so I decided to post it up. The before photo shows the jar having been slipped, combed and only recently carved on the shoulder and lid and the after photo is rather self-explanitory. These jars were quickly slipped and combed and the carving was also done rather quickly trying to give the piece a rather casual and natural feel and then once glazed, the Ao+ filled in all the nooks and crannies creating a nice contrasting depth of color to the overall appearance. I like making covered pots, it allows me to fit together two seperate pieces as well as wondering what will this jar or the others from the series will be used for?

TANPAN

Arguably one of the finest Ki-Seto potters of the 20th century, Kagami Shukai (1941-2009) created this little gem of a chaire in his thoughful and classical style. This simple form with natural throwing marks and taunt shoulder is covered in Kagami's unique Ki-Seto glaze with tanpan (tanban, tampan), copper splashes on the on the face and back  and a slight amount of koge, scorching around the bottom third of the piece making this an ideal and crucial part of the tea ceremony. Though seemingly simple in its creation, this chaire is the pinnacle of the art and the result of years of practice and in depth research not only honing his craft but also understanding the historical glaze and forms he pursued; in fact his research into Mino pottery extended to archeological digs and kiln and shard excavations to further his knowledge of the history, clay, glazes and manufacture of Shino, Oribe, Seto-Guro and Ki-Seto in the region. There is little else I can actually say about this wonderful little pot other than stating the obvious, big things do come in small packages and in this case it also packs a tremendous punch on nearly every level.