SPECIFIC PURPOSE

Out of a recent firing, I put together a number of small pairs of whiskey cups thrown to help fill empty spaces around the kiln. Though I call them whisky cups, their uses are endless considering over the years we have used them for dips, nuts, condiments, sorbet/ ice cream, whiskey of course as well as sake, bourbon, and teas. The illustrated pair fit well together in terms of decoration and color and look nice in front of a full bottle of a Suntory Hibiki Whiskey and I must admit, I like the look of whiskey against the dark Oribe style glazed interior. As I mentioned the uses are as endless as one can come up with but when I sit at the wheel to throw my mind usually goes to a rather specific purpose for the pieces I am throwing and in this case I think you can guess what that function is.

"Too much of anything is bad, but too much whiskey is barely enough."  Mark Twain

THE OLD IS NEW

I just relish a pot that has that old, medieval look to it; a casual stance, a rich, well fired surface and a classical form. This Bizen chawan has the feudal appearance with a surface that just reminds one of old Bizen and the form is well crafted and inspired by those old bowls of the Momoyama and early Edo days. Made by Osawa Tsuneo (b. 1962) this bowl is a practical exercise in looking back at old Kamakura and Muromachi era Bizen pottery and blending it with the moment, a skill he learned from his master Sueishi Taisetsu and through hard won trial and error to both replicate an older style firing method and classical pottery from an earlier time. I assembled this slideshow video from a chawan that I had here at some point in the past and think it gives the sense of the carefree, yet disciplined nature of a chawan than straddles two distinct ages.

KYOTO-SUGATA

One of the things I love about the various Kawai school potters is their unique sense of form especially when it comes to the molded henko they are so well known for. Innovative, provocative and elegant forms, many related to the Kyoto sense of style are a wonderful  stage for the variety of glazes and decorations that sprung from Kawai Kanjiro and were passed on within the family and to many of his students from deep, dark temmoku, rich shinsha reds and the world famous gosu blues. The illustrated henko was made by Kawai Hisashi and has a direct relationship to those of his master with his own unique sensibility thrown in and perhaps a small dose of the elegance that the old Imperial Capital, Kyoto is known for. The full form begins and ends with the same style of angular termination that ties the form together and is glazed over in a whitish, translucent crackle which is highlighted with areas of red that has run and created areas of droozy, moss like tendrils that bring movement to the surface of this engaging piece. This pot is definitely a classic henko that draws its inspirations from earlier days and Kanjiro as an expression of the potters inner voice adding another page to the Kyoto saga of the Kawai-mon.

END OF DAY

At the end of the day, many times I take a block of time, wedge up some set amount of clay and throw some v-bowls and teabowls off the hump. In a way, this is a reward, personal time in which I can either fill some orders or just wing it and hopefully come up with some new shape that I find interesting. The illustrated teabowl came about as the fifth piece off the hump, though related to other bowls that I make, I altered an existing shape I work with and came up with this form with the majority of the foot finished as it is thrown. I realize there is nothing radical about this bowl shape but as it has a different surface geometry than others, now I also have to figure out what is the best way to decorate or glaze the piece, again nothing extreme but I do like this type of problem solving. I think I may go with four to six impressed stamp designs around the piece which will also alter the pristine thrown nature of the form and break it up a bit and I am thinking temmoku, temmoku and ash or some Oribe variant for a glaze. I thought about some application of black over white slip but I think I have decided that I want to keep the lines sharp. I like the end of the day throwing, after a day working, thinking at least with the box open is a great way to finish and get ready for tomorrow.

PLUMBING THE DEPTHS

As time passes, I realize more and more just what a product of classic horror and science fiction I really am, whether from film, pulps, comics or books. The other day a rather remarkable ceramic object arrived here and having spent a good amount of time studying it, surveying the form, surface and nuances I placed it up on a shelf to "rest" until the next day. Later that evening though I was on the computer and turned to look at the piece and I realized that the light and shadow created a fantastical, even alien instrument or prop. Highlighted like some early frame from a  Fritz Lang film or the shadowing that brought the eerie qualities of FRANKENSTEIN (1931) to life, the atmosphere and presence was just captivating. The object in question is a Bizen sculpture by Kaneshige Kosuke known as "floating or portrait" and as you can see in the photo, rendered in black & white it appears to be something out of a 50s sci-fi movie, possibly something organic or even an alien globe of sorts. I have always loved these forms, possibly for all of the associated memories that it renders or perhaps it is something much deeper, plumbing those deep recesses of the mind where ritual, ceremony and unbridled imagination reside. In the end, I would like to think that the true appeal of this object is that it has found a way to touch what is simple, honest and oddly enough familiar and Wittgenstein said it best; "The aspects of things most important for us are hidden because of their simplicity and familiarity."

ORIGINS STORY

Anyone who is a comic book fan and by extension has interest in the film adaptations of comics knows the importance of the origins story; it sets the stage, the mood of the narrative and is the basis for the character development. To that end, I thought I would relate just how I met Kohyama Yasuhisa and was fortunate enough to go and study at his studio. Back in 1992 I had luckily struck up a relationship with Michael Cunningham the curator of Japanese Department at the Cleveland Museum of Art and at one point he showed me a gift he had recently received by a potter in Japan. The pot in question was a kamo-tokkuri with a soft green surface and pebbled texture with incised line decoration around the piece by Shigaraki potter Kohyama Yasuhisa and at that moment I was just hooked. A few months later my wife and I were invited to a small dinner party at Michael's home and when we got there we met a local Cleveland ikebana expert and Kohyama Yasuhisa and his assistant, Nakamoto Wakae. We talked about the museum, Japanese arts and of course pottery, we seemed to hit it off and later that week, Kohyama-san came to our home and looked over our small collection of pottery as well as my work. Two months later I received several letters from Japan saying that I could come and study with him for several months, a cycle of making, drying, firing and unloading. Needless to say, this whole process and relationship started with a rather brilliant but humble tokkuri.

Illustrated is a classic tokkuri and pair of guinomi by Kohyama Yasuhisa. Though unadorned with incised decoration, the soft green surface and the resisted areas tie this set together and could be recognized as Kohyama's work from well across the room, they have a soft, inviting quality that calls out to be enjoyed and perhaps fondled just a bit in their use. Taking his cues from Edo period kamo-tokkuri (duck bottles), Kohyama has added wonderful element to this unique form which is much more ancient in presentation like the Sueki wares which he admires but is grounded in sense of modernism that pervaded Japan as the foundations for his form and designs were being formulated. However one arrives at this point, there is no denying that just seeing this form makes one smile just a bit both inside and out.

RUSHED

Last fall while I was in the middle of getting pots made for galleries and holiday sales I ended up making, decorating, firing and packing so quickly that I didn't take many if any photos of stuff going out the door. In response to one gallery owner's request that I possibly send them some "new designs" I had made an extra group of about 20 or so terra cotta bowls destined for either tebori carved slip, black and white slip trailed or the combination of both and over coffee the morning of trimming and decorating sketched out several design ideas. Once the pots were trimmed and black slipped the first bowl I decorated was with a carved repeat design with white slip trailed dot accents and the snowberry design was born. It is a rather simple design and the technique to get there is also simple enough but the flow of the decoration works rather well on a round bowl or plate surface. In all, I probably only made two dozen of these pieces but in my rush to make them, I only ended up with a single photo of a greenware piece, none in their finished state. Not sure what else to say other than they all sold and the illustrated pieces come from a recently completed Spring order so I'll keep on making them. I'll end by saying that I wish every design I came up with was popular but I can certainly think or quite a few that never took off, most notably the twister-ware design of 1999!

KINYO-GUINOMI

Though one has come to expect the brilliant saidei works of the late Miyashita Zenji, in his youth he followed in his father's footstep creating a wide array of pottery in various styles and glazes. Among one notable style that Miyashita mastered was this Kinyo style which makes for a rather pretty and useful guinomi which has a great, compact form, exceptional lip highlighted by a dark rim and an overall luminous textured punctuated by a deep crimson spot signifying the front of the pot. I have tried to highlight the various qualities of this guinomi in a short video slideshow and hope that this shows off a lesser known style of Miyashita Zenji, one of the surface geniuses of the 20th century.

SHORTCUT

I was working on cleaning up some images of the Kato Tsuneyoshi Mino-Iga mizusashi that I had taken on the path to building a slideshow video of the piece and came across this image. Though this pot has a great deal of rich green ash areas it is on the lid where it really shines; deep, emerald green pools that look like a mineral cluster or outcroppings any adventurer would be thrilled to stumble upon. I have to admit, I am more than smitten with this effect both shizen, all natural in its occurrence as well as through some artifice of technology though it is all the more impressive when it happens through the intensity of the firing and astute choice of varying woods. In either method it still appears as if some guiding provenance has touched the pot and created a surface that one can get lost in and spend any amount of time in some degree of contemplation. There it is, a wonderful shortcut, just a simple arrangement of a handful of certain chemicals, elements collected to create an effect as close to perfect as my eye can see and unlike actual emeralds you can forego the extreme temperatures, dynamic pressure and the millions of years in the making.

TA&H

I made a few bowl the other day, they were thrown a bit thick, altered to a more or less square form and then hacked at a bit with my home made fluting tool. What I ended up with was a squared bowl with intentionally irregular, diagonal flutes for a rustic look, then the bowl was dipped in white slip and then brushed to even out the surface. Once dry I am intending on glazing it in Oribe and then giving it a light using of my black glaze for a surface I am referring to as Kuro-Oribe even though it is not so in the truest sense of the term. I think it should end up with a neat surface and I am hoping to encourage some of the droozy effects moving down the diagonal channels. One step at a time, first it needs to make it through the bisque firing.

COINCIDENCE, I DON"T THINK SO

It is funny how things go, the flow of coincidence (?), pots coming in waves or seeing a group of pots by a potter you have never seen before. Recently I handled a group of pots by Tokoname potter, Kato Yoshiaki (b.1934) who I was acquainted with through illustrations like the one of this wildly glazed Shino mizusashi from a book that I have. In the group was two very nice chawan, one in an older style surface looking like some early Edo tea piece and the other much closer to the pictured mizusashi though not quite as active a surface perched on a high foot with great lift. I was immediately infatuated with his work once I was able to study the pieces, from several different collection in which despite being modern and unique works, the pots all have a very old sensibility to them, that timeless quality that I like with gritty, honest surfaces.  This mizusashi has that quality as well, 1990 or 1890, either is possible though the boldness and posture of form and controlled chaos of the surface put it firmly in the modern camp one can't help but think that it was made during the hectic and creative days of the Meiji era or possibly earlier. It is wonderful to handle a group of pots by a "new" potter and this experience has left me a fan of Kato Yoshiaki's impressive sharkskin style Shino among other surfaces.  

I plan on making a slideshow video of each of the Kato Yoshiaki chawan in the future and will put them up on Youtube and my blog when they are finished.

MORE THAN POUR

I can think of very few potters that are able to create a simple, functional vessel, in this case a tokkuri and make it such a pleasure to use as does Kakurezaki Ryuichi. Visually engaging, this Bizen tokkuri checks off the list of all the bells in whistles from wonderful form, great surface, exceptional texture, masterfully functional and just a real treat to put through its paces though it can do so much more than pour. Created by throwing a basic form, the pot is brought to life by paddling, pushing, cutting and even cajoling the clay to do the bidding that the manipulator wishes, what appears is a tokkuri distinct, idiosyncratic to this potter, unlike no other and set apart even from its relations. Kakurezaki is of course a master at moving clay, creating and fine tuning evocative form and choosing both great clay and wood for his firings; this piece has benefited from all of his skills from imagination to firing and though a simple tokkuri, it is evidently so much more.

You can see more of this little gem over on my Trocadero marketplace; https://www.trocadero.com/stores/albedo3studio/catalog/

MORE FACETS

I decided to try my hand at making a few faceted & banded tokkuri and this is what I came up with. It is only about seven inches or so tall and should make a proper size by the time it is finished fired and my thought process is through some degree of measured persistence I may get a better feel for this process at any scale or form. I am most likely to glaze this in Oribe to allow all the lines and sharp angles show through the surface and collect on whatever points it can. I made the central ring of the bottle a bit depressed to aid in the handling and use of the vessel and it will remain to see how that decision pans out. I think all the lines and angles should like quite nice under the Oribe and will try to remember to post a finished photo when the pot is finished.

"No rock so hard but that a little wave may beat admission in a thousand years." Alfred, Lord Tennyson