Illustrated is a medium size V-bowl with a tall foot
with triangular cut outs on opposite sides of the foot. Using wax, I painted
out my abstrakt verses design around the interior and exterior of the bowl and
once dried applied a very thin coat of black slip over the surface and once
bisque glazed it in an amber glaze. The
verses design is basically a fluid rendition of mostly nonsensical elements which
at one point were based on the print works of Haku Maki and both soshu and
tensho style kanji; now they are more about movement and relationship as the
move about the surface. Working like this is fun, because of the use of wax,
you need to work fast and there is little room for error or it shows up quite
readily. I should relate an interesting story, while Kohyama Yasuhisa was in
Cleveland, my wife and I had him over to our house several times and on one
trip, I had hanging a large kakejiku scroll on which I had painted two bold
lines of calligraphy in the verses style. Kohyama-san walked up to it and with
his finger started tracing the individual elements and admitted, he could read
some of it but the others were just baffling, I explained what it was and he
gave me a small smack on the back and one of his sly, understanding grins.
Every time I paint out the verses patterns since, that moment where he was
tracing the characters always springs to mind.
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