HNY

KARATSU WASH

I am not that familiar with the painter and print artist Akizuki Akira (b. 1923) but I do know that I was drawn in to this ink wash painting (?) of a rather simple tsubo. The use of soft washes and shadowed bottom and highlighted neck and mouth create a rather lyrical image of a typical E-Garatsu style pot. The simple addition of the iron decoration on the face of pot done in a darker brown/black ink which at the very least captures the heart and nature of a simple, humble Karatsu tsubo. Perhaps what interests me most is how these various 2-D artists perceive the "essence" of pottery and then manages to present their understanding of the piece in a different format. In recent years there have been a number of pottery enthusiast artists, most notably Daniel Kelly and Joel Stewart who create both paintings and prints showing off the beauty of traditional Japanese pottery and like them, Akizuki has made quite a few works with pottery as a main focus showcasing what it is that the pot says to him and through his work to each and every viewer.

JUST SHINO

I was searching for a photo yesterday in response to a conversation I was having with a distant collector and near the photos in question was this lone jpeg of a rich, red Shino covered jar. This covered jar was made by Bill Klock back in the 90s and was one of a group of pots I picked up while working with him at Plattsburgh State and his studio, several of which were given off to several very gracious patrons that I had back at that time. With some luck, this pot stayed with Mindy and I and made its way from Cleveland, through numerous moves and is still with us here in the Mohawk Valley. Bill loved Shino along with temmoku and ash in which a great number of his pots were glazed and this jar shows the influences of his stay in Korea with impressed and inlaid devices around the pot. It is a straight forward, almost simple pot that was made with function in mind without ever overlooking pleasing the eye as well. The Shino was used somewhat thin showing off the decoration and throwing marks which in turn makes for a rather fiery red surface. In truth despite all the years I spent around Bill, I have far fewer pots by him than one would expect and certainly far fewer than I would like and this may be just a simple Shino covered pot but to me it is equal parts of inspiration, standard and a perpetual reminder of a mentor and friend.

SEASON'S GREETINGS

CLASSIC CINEMA

I stumbled on a group of a dozen or so slideshow videos that I had made when I first started making slideshows, there is a nice group of pots from Kumano, Tsukigata, Yamato Yasuo and several Hori Ichiro among others. I decided to put up this early slideshow video of a very nice Shino chawan by one of my favorites, Hori Ichiro, a classic piece by him with just wonderful glaze quality. As you can see in the video, the bowl is broad and has a strong form with an excellent interplay between the white of the feldspar and the rust hue of the iron which has glimpses of iridescence. In truth, this is a very visually appealing bowl which is equally so in person, having just enough manipulation of the form to feel at home in the hands and resting in the palm, I am hoping this slideshow "classic" gives one the sense of what the bowl has to say.

SINGLED IN

Recently a fellow collector sent me a link to a Tsukigata Nahiko piece as he thought it may be of interest though he suggested I may already have too many pieces by this potter.  Of course I thanked him for the link but I also added, what is too many pieces? The truth is that we actually don't own many Tsukigata pots, most of the photos I have shared come from other people's collection or are photos I find in old book or on the internet here and there. However, I keep coming back to the question, what is too many pots by a single potter and my mind goes to collectors and collections built around a single individual from Picasso to Utagawa Kuniyoshi, from the sculpture of Gaston Lachaise to the pottery of Warren MacKenzie or the etchings of Albrecht Durer. It would seem that collecting an "individual" or more succinctly an individual's work is rather common and makes for an in-depth and the broadest understanding of the artist possible. I suspect the fellow collector may have in part been a bit sarcastic (in a good way) knowing a bit about my temperament but I have concluded when dealing with potters like Kumano, Furutani Michio, Tsukigata Nahiko and a few others, when can you have too many pieces, as long as each work is unique, doesn't duplicate a piece in the collection and makes its own bold and empowered statement than I am all for bringing another pot in the house.

Illustrated is a detail shot of a Tsukigata Nahiko mizusashi that I handled somewhat recently. Enclosed in its original box entitled; Oni-Shino Mizusashi with its fitted silk shifuku, this pot is as far afield from what one normally thinks of as Oni-Shino with areas of thick ash, deep, rich iron and thick feldspar plains. This particular rmizusashi is enclosed in a coat of thick Shino with ash covering the surface creating areas of translucent green over the white base adding tones of blue-grey and ash crystals across the entire piece. Interspersed about the pot are fissures created by the tension and weight of the glaze which allows the rich accumulated ash to paint these crevices to maximum affect and further activating the pot for the fullest dramatic presentation that a thick, viscous white glaze can muster. Given the serene and austere nature of this surface who would pass up such a pot simply because they already have a mizusashi or even ten.

JUTLAND

I mentioned these teapots a while back when I wrote about a sloop influenced t-pot. In this case here is a pair of Jutland influenced teapots that are loosely based on the battleships of WW 1 with the spout as naval gun and each decorated in camouflage of the period. Each of these fully functional piece, made a number of years back started life as simple thrown stoneware cylinders without bottoms and then they were compressed oval, cut, darted and assembled into these forms with handles and spouts added and flowing stoppers completing the package. Back when I was making these pieces there was also a set of four, two pairs of teapots, one representing the Royal Navy under Admiral Sir John Jellicoe and the other the Imperial German Navy under Vice-Admiral Reinhard Scheer, each set distinctly decorated to create opposing forces of one of the greatest sea battles in history. Being a huge history buff, my primary major in college, it was fun creating these sets based on a historical sea battle though I doubt without some narrative or explanation the inspiration would necessary spring to mind and that is just fine as well but a little back story doesn't hurt either.

"What is history but a fable agreed upon?" Napoleon Bonaparte

OLD IS NEW

As I look at this vase, the stocky, purposeful form reminds me of many of the older kinuta forms of the late Edo period but with a few modern additions. Created by Iga potter, Imura Mitsuo, this particular mallet vase has just the right amount of taper to the shoulder and then from the neck base to the mouth to interest the eye and get one interested in the form. When the depressed shoulder region is added together with the very nice firing, the pot is brought to life, animated and complete as a functional and aesthetic piece. The wonderful waterfall of ash effect paints the face of the pot, essentially orienting its display but also adding a sense of the vertical to an otherwise compact and sturdy form, lastly as you add in various surface texture, the "crumbly" effects around the shoulder and mouth and this Iga vase has all the bells and whistles it needs to entertain the viewer. It is a simple wood fired pot at its core but when you give it the time, stop, look and listen it is clear that Imura made a pot that skillfully balance form, function and his art to the best possible affect.

GOLDEN FORM

I have mentioned my fondness for books covering older modern Japanese pottery and truth be told, I also like pots that cover the breath of the Showa era very much. The illustrated vase is a classic piece made toward the end of the Showa era, sometime in the 1980's by Kyoto potter, Suzuki Kenji (1935-2010). Suzuki Kenji came from a pottery family including his brother Suzuki Takuji and his father Kiyoshi was a distinguished potter who favored sometsuke and enamel work who taught his two sons his craft. Kenji had a profound sense of mastery of form and glazes and this particular vase has a rather clever and intriguing form which is then glazed over in a pale, golden brown to sea-foam style glaze with crisp decoration done in over-glaze gold. The streaked glaze and gold over-glaze match very well together and accentuate the novel form which despite is angles is all about pure utility with a hint of Suzuki Kenji's international and Kyoto based perspectives and influences.  At the end of the day it is quite easy to see this vase put to good use for flowers or taking up a favorite space as a nice display piece, the choice is yours.

A different version this time around;

I DON'T EVEN LIKE FISH

I don't think I have mentioned this before nor do I doubt anyone cares, but I don't really like fish. Cooked fish that is, I have never responded well to fish all the way back to school and fish-stick Fridays, there is something about the smell and texture that I just am not a huge fan of though I do happen to like sashimi and sushi. That being said, I find it odd that from day one, it seemed quite natural to paint, carve and slip-trail fish on bowl, plates, platters and trays as part of what I suppose is a tradition going back many centuries especially among slip-trail potters. Though I work with several fish designs, they come out rather differently using different technique such as slip-trailing, carving, stenciled and painted making for rather diverse imagery from terra cotta to porcelain, slipware to underglaze cobalt decoration and everything in between. The illustrated fish bowl was decorated rather quickly with a basic preconceived design and then various devices like the spirals are added to help fill the space and further articulate the design. As I said, I don't even really like fish but somehow they continue to find their way on to my plate no matter what I do.

CLASSICAL CONTEXT

I know I will end up sounding like a very broken record, but I love getting older books on modern Japanese pottery. There is a perspective and insight that you miss when you simple see a singular contemporary photo in a book recently published, in the older books you see a wide array of pottery, all produced in and around when the book was published. This affords the viewer a glimpse in to the time and temperament at a given moment in time which creates a context of what was happening and how each potter made their way while working and not necessarily being totally aware of everything that was taking place before the advent of the internet and books, magazines and catalogues flooding the scene.

The attached illustration is from a small jiten, encyclopedia style book from Showa 48 (1973), written by founder of Kuroda-Toen, Kuroda Ryoji, a ceramics expert and author of numerous books including  CLASSIC STONEWARE OF JAPAN; Shino and Oribe  as well as SHINO (Famous Ceramics of Japan series), both in English and many others in Japanese. Though a grainy b/w photo, the power of the tsubo shows through the illustration and is by the father of modern Tokoname pottery, Ezaki Issei. Ezaki's early body of work served as  a standard and a new archetype for the revival of modern Tokoname ware through not only his own pottery but through his pupils as well, most notably, Takeuchi Kimiaki and Osako Mikio. The direct use of clay, forms and firing techniques helped breath a sense of vitality back into Tokoname classical stoneware pottery and a tradition that was for a century better known for water pipes than a medieval tradition.

I think it is safe to say that this essential and practical pot heralds back to earlier times, fortified with a strength and perhaps a tiny bit of ego to continue a nearly lost tradition in to the modern age. This simple pot is a stalwart addition to the various traditions re-imagined and reinvented during the 20th century of which Tokoname owes a debt to pots just like this one made by a potter determined to adhere to certain classical tenets that find their roots all the way back to the birth of the regional styles seen in the ancient Sueki wares.

CONNECTIONS X 3

I think it is rather safe to say that by looking at this vase it would be rather hard to draw a connection to Ningen Kokuho, Kondo Yuzo but if you could or did, it would be a very safe bet. This haiyu, ash glazed and wood fired vase was made by Takayama Koh (b. 1943) who studied with Kondo Yuzo early on in his career but also spent time at the studio of Kamoda Shoji where he learned more about  sculpture and form and was also introduced to the wide array of pottery that was made at his workshop. If you add to Takeyama's exposure to Kondo and Kamoda that he later became rather interested in Nanban style pottery and went and worked at Tanegashima for a year, you get a fuller picture of the influenced that go in to his pottery. Looking at this particular pot, it is easy to spot the influences of Kondo's porcelain vase forms with the addition of creating marks in a way that Kamoda was well known for. The rich ash glaze matches well with the brick red clay which is very similar to some of his Nanban pottery pieces and his unglazed and wood fired Komainu sculptural. There is no way to dispute that every artist and craftsman is an amalgam of teachers, historical influences, life experiences and preferences but it is the those that walk along their own path with their own voice that many times have the most to say and this simple, even humble vase has plenty to say preferably in a two sided conversation.

JUST ANOTHER GLAZE

Illustrated is a paddled stoneware cap jar glazed over in a simple Albany slip* glaze composed of just three materials. Once the pot was thrown, using a 1" x 4" scrap piece of wood that is heavily carved, the smack down begins being just careful enough to not destroy the pot. The pot is also carefully rethrown using a rib on the interior to create a pot that is mostly round again resembling it original thrown form. The Albany glaze is more of less transparent though where it pools areas of iridescence and deep, dark areas appear accentuating every nook and cranny. I have always loved this glaze which I believe I got from Val Cushing back in the early 90s, it bears a strong resemblance if not some of the spirit of the old Korean faceted honey jars and to aspects of Bernard Leach's pieces. Though I would like to think this is distinctly my pot, it goes without saying that there is a bit of the people I have studied with in the past as well as numerous historical antecedents in each and every pot that I make.

(*I should mention that this glaze is made using actual Albany slip not a substitute. I have tried replicating Albany slip using a variety of published, known and personal experimentations formulas but to my eye, none hold the quality, character and depth of the real thing. Use it wisely and sparingly and you will find there is still Albany slip out there if you search carefully from ex-potters, estates, etc and if you can try the real thing, I think you will see exactly what I am saying. Good luck!)