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.