BOWLED OVER

I am constantly amazed at the wild and unique variety of modern Japanese pottery and even more so regarding pieces based on centuries old traditions with a modern and spirited approach. I recently had this large and impressive bowl in my hands which is based on the old tradition of Kuro-Satsuma, Black Satsuma which see its roots in the late 16th century with the influx of Korean potters in to Tateno, Tatsumonji and Neashirogawa in Kyushu. This classic yet modern Naeshirogawa-yaki  piece was made by Araki Mikijiro and was showcased at the ASAHI CERAMICS EXHIBITION in 1983 (where it won a Special Award). The slideshow video should show off the variety of color variations and wonderful repeated detail in the design which brings a rather elegant atmosphere to what is a functional pot of which Yanagi Soetsu considered the works of Kuro-Satsuma as a standard bearer of the Mingei movement. The exceptional use of motif, decoration for which Araki is well known, truly brings this pot to life, animates it and makes it anything but your standard Sunday dinner serving bowl. I didn't use a lot of photos for this slideshow but I suspect you will still get a sense of the presence and scale of the large, pleasing and impressive Japanese pot.

LASTING IMPRESSION

At first glance it is easy to see this Shigaraki piece as larger than it is but in fact it is only a guinomi. What gives this piece the deceptive ability to confuse is a combination of form, posture and a great surface all "engineered" by veteran potter, Kohyama Yasuhisa.  Everything about this guinomi from its animated posture, well conceived foot and undulation to the lip gives the impression of a chawan while the surface paints a narrative much larger than the dimensions of the pot. Admittedly, I am biased when it comes to the work of Kohyama-san but I think it may be somewhat easy to make a good first impression, but making a lasting impression like this little beauty, now that is a different story.

TA&H2

Illustrated is a thrown, altered and hacked at square teabowl that I posted up a while back just after it was freshly slipped. The finished product shows the heavily fluted bowl glazed with an Oribe glaze and areas of thick, deep green running diagonally following the flutes around the bowl. I was able to encourage the glaze running by brushing an added layer or black iron over the ridge areas and you can see the results. As you may guess this is a large teabowl and though it was made as such, I suspect it can fill just about any function you put your mind to from filling it with dip to standing upright biscotti in it. There was something a lot of fun about squaring up this form, getting the exterior lines just right and then just quickly and asymmetrically fluting the surface bringing a slight amount of chaos to an otherwise well planned out geometric form.

"From chaos, comes order."  Nietzsche

GLASSY GEM

Illustrated is a classic and rather wonderful chaire by Raku and Iga potter, Konishi Heinai.  As with many of these photos, this is not a photo I took or a pot that I handled but I certainly thought it worth sharing as a stellar example of Konishi's work which at first glance almost appears like it was dipped in a glass tank and coated in a beautiful coating of rich bidoro. The form is strong and medieval in appearance with a simple, even subtle design rendered around the pot which is further accentuated by the all natural ash that has covered this chaire. I have seen and handled a number of pots by Konishi Heinai over the years and can say without hesitation this may rank as the finest and my favorite chaire by him that I have seen; the surface is electric and shimmery like a coveted glassy gem which in all likelihood would be hard to play second fiddle to the chawan in use during the tea ceremony. Though this could be considered ever so slightly old school, I believe that pots like this will keep traditions like Iga on the straight and narrow and serve as an archetype into the future in the same way medieval pots served this function for potters like Konishi Heinai in the recent century past.

FILE UNDER; SMALL WORLD

A week or so ago, I received an email from a collector from the Great White North letting me know that a photo I had put up actually shows off a guinomi that he had acquired. The photo in question was actually sent to me by another collector whom had visited Kumano in Echizen some time past and to be honest, I thought what are the odds and even more so, what a small world has been created by internet connectivity. The guinomi is by Kumano Kuroemon and is quite a beauty, the surface is a sheet of pale green fractured ice with an area of built up ash running down the very face of the piece. The form is classic Kumano, broad and well articulated perched on a generous foot that adds both stability and a sense of purpose to this small giant. At first glance it is easy to see what Kumano's surfaces are all about but as you delve deeper in to them, they are a complex assortment of varying effects, chemistry and fantastical firing. It may only be a guinomi but from my perspective, a truly good pot can fill up quite a large space where a small pot  can write volumes about a craft and art of a potter as this certainly does.

And from the political desk of I, POTTER the quintessential differences between Canada and the US in a short video in case anyone was confused or wondering;

18" PLUS & 2LBS. OF CLAY

I was recently asked to throw a couple of larger serving bowls in stoneware, destined for temmoku and ash and temmoku and iron for their surfaces. I don't make a lot of bowls any bigger than a normal family will use as they are hard to ship and need the right fit to sell, but an order is an order. Once in the studio, I put on one of my favorite best of the 80s cds, wedged up the clay and started throwing with the hope that throwing two bowls would yield two bowls out of the kiln. As I was throwing and with the help of the music, my mind wandered back to Cleveland State where I was throwing a series of 24" serving pieces for a caterer and to one particular female student who just had a series of questions for everything I was doing. On this particular morning, studio tasks out of the way, I was throwing and then the inevitable questions  to which she arrived at "well how much clay was I using?". It may have been my mood, the music, the tasks at hand but without skipping a beat I told her they were just 5lbs of clay each*. Off she went, spending several hours throwing and just always came up shy, by half. I realize this may sound cruel but as it turned out, by the end of her series, she had thrown bowls larger than she had ever done so out of 5lbs of clay. I let her in on the actual weight and told her they were only 2lbs of clay at which point she figured out that I wasn't exactly truthful with her which brings me back to today with two 18" plus bowls out of a mere 2lbs of clay, between them.

(* My wife thought it important to mention that during my time at CSU, people all played jokes on each other, they were not malicious, it was just part of the atmosphere of a fun, jovial, competitive pottery studio.)

HUMILITY IN CLAY

There really isn't a lot that one can say about this simple, honest bowl other than to say it is a traditional Fujina-yaki hachi by Funaki Michitada. Thrown out of a red earthenware and glazed in classic green glaze over slip with impressed decoration and a rolled lip, the pooled deep iron-green highlights the piece and just begs to be used or at the very least enjoyed. Funaki Michitada  was the inheritor of a 300 year old tradition, Fujina-yaki and Holder of Intangible Cultural Property of Shimane Prefecture and together with his son, Kenji, both through the popularity of Leach, Yanagi and Hamada put their work on the international stage. This particular bowl was bought in Fujina and brought to the US as a gift for a friend back in the late 1950s and was packed in shaved excelsior as was common for the time though no longer present. As I said, there is really little I can say about this humble bowl other than in its humility, its nobility shines through the rich surface. On a side note, this pot was originally collected by Merlin C. Dailey, Japanese art dealer and author on the prints of Utagawa Kuniyoshi.

A.P.A.

Having grown up just on the fringes of the Adirondack Park in NY State, I couldn't help but seeing some of my old stomping grounds in this vivid oil painting. Painted by Tsukigata Nahiko, this particular painting is just a slight bit unusual for the artist-potter though not so far afield as to not be instantly recognizable as his work. The colors evoke a rich fall scene of craggy hills and clouds moving quickly past, the brushwork appears fast and determined and overall displays a fine, bold visage typical of his work. I think one of the real attributes of this painting is its ability to touch on the experiences of anyone looking at it, it could be anywhere in Japan, the Adirondacks, the Scottish Highlands or just about  at any place the viewer has been. Though I really love Tsukigata's Fuji and other Japanese landscape paintings and even those painted in and around Paris, I am always partial to a painting that makes me feel the artist came to my home and thought it worth immortalizing it in oil on canvas. Every time I think of this painting the beauty of the great forest in my backyard will always spring to mind.

"Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home; that wilderness is a necessity; and that mountain parks and reservations are useful not only as fountains of timber and irrigating rivers but as fountains of life."   John Muir 1898

(*Adirondack Park Agency)

NEXT TIME AROUND

It occurred to me quite recently that I hadn't made any etched porcelain pieces in a while so I made a group of very simple round teabowl forms and the illustrated piece is one of the results. Thrown out of porcelain and then finished on the wheel with a sea sponge, a texture is left on the surface as you can see in the photo after which the design is put on in wax and then the area around is carefully removed using diluted vinegar in this case though straight water works as well. The design here is quite simple, repeated ovoid devices around the surface that intersect at  various points around the bowl. It was suggested that this particular photo makes the design look a bit like some disenfranchised bug creature but I assure you all I was after was a simple, geometric based design. I think the next time around I am likely to use shellac as resist even though the cleanup is a pain in the butt, the detail can be much finer, more crisp and quite possibly worth the effort.

KUJAKU-YU

My last post regarding the Tsukigata Nahiko golden mizusashi got me thinking of the metallic and lustrous surface or another pot that I took photos of a while back, different but certainly as interesting. I first came in to contact with Miura Shurei's pottery from seeing the Kikuchi collection and though I had seen a few pieces first hand, I hadn't actually handled any until earlier this year. This somewhat confusing detail shot is a close-up of the iridescent, metallic surface of a tall octagonal bottle by Miura Shurei (b.1942) that shows off one of his classic glazes, kujaku-yu (peacock glaze) which is bisected by one of the lines created when the piece was faceted. The glaze has either run away or has been intentionally manipulated to highlight each ridge line creating a wonderful decorative element to an already stunning surface and vase. In low light this bottle appears to be just a classic, Chinese influenced form with a dark, smoky glaze but by subjecting it to varying light sources the pot shows off its various lives with a different persona for each. As you may be able to tell from this detail shot, this is a very spirited and contemplative vase with a surface rich in variation and elements, it was great to have the opportunity to see it first hand, literally.

I should also mention that there is a piece by Miura Shurei at the Sackler (Smithsonian) which you can see here; https://www.freersackler.si.edu/object/S1993.35/ 

METALLIC GALAXY

I was looking for some  photos of a Tokoname pot yesterday and in doing so stumbled across this detail shot of the interior of the "golden mizusashi" that I posted up by Tsukigata Nahiko some time back. For the lack of a better descriptor, the interior and in fact most of the pot has an other-worldly appearance like something only the Hubble can glimpse and as you can tell the surface just seems to glow or luminesce by reflecting back all the light collected inside. In some respects I am reminded of what I would expect some distant planet made predominantly of solid metal to look like with areas of various elements coalesced  to paint the surface with all kinds of unique textures and color created as molten metal solidifies and creates  stunning crystals. The irony is that is probably exactly how this glaze came to be, heavily impregnated with various metallic oxides which through heat created an array of metallic like effects not unlike the so called manganese gold glaze used by modern American potters. I truly enjoyed seeing this very unique Tsukigata mizusashi though I suspect where there is one there are likely to be many, the visual texture was quite stunning and when on display it just irradiated the area creating its own intergalactic arena balancing reflected light and shadow and making the fullest use of form to command all available space.

NECESSITY

For nearly two decades I have dragged around this odd plastic cup that I was given as a gift as a joke and it has been ever present on my desk near the computer all that time until recently when it actually just split in half. Though I carefully glued it back together I realized it could no longer function in its previous capacity as a pencil holder so I made another to replace it. The illustrated pierced Oribe style pen holder  is based on a pierced Japanese Oribe candle holder that I really like and the piece was quickly thrown in stoneware, incised to establish where I would cut out clay and then holes were cut in the opposing solid areas to lighten up the visual form. Obviously this was glazed in one of my Oribe formulas, in this case made from lepidolite which highlights the incised decoration and the sharp cuts from the piercings. I am sure that it was not my intension to have to make a pencil holder the day before I did but it fit well within the kiln and adds credence to the old maxim; necessity truly is the mother of invention.

BTW could there be anything less interesting that a blog post about a guy making a pencil holder? It really is true, the fact that I have nothing to say means I definitely should blog about it.