SOLITARY

Illustrated is a rather solitary henko form by Kawai Takeichi. I like this form quite a bit as it is simple, has rather honest lines and acts as volume for a expressionist style painting created through glaze and fire. The base glaze for this pot is Takeichi's simple ash glaze which is a good back drop and helps activate the additions of shinsha, tetsu-yu and a copper based addition to the frenetically executed decoration. Though clearly not by his master, Kawai Kanjiro, the concept, form and pace of execution can easily be spotted in this piece which is a wonderful addition to the Kawai school of pottery making though a clear voice articulated by Kawai Takeichi rings true in this piece as it does for the vast majority of his work. It must have been intensely difficult adding to a modern tradition without making copies and various other stylistic faux-pas related to one's master while clearly creating a large body of work the is a blend of one's heritage and one's inner voice. As I survey Kawai Takeichi's body of work it is obvious that he learned so well from a master that taught above all that, "everything is but an expression of the self"*.

(*From THE WINDOW OF LIFE by Kawai Kanjiro)