I was in a hurry to
photograph this particular Oribe style vase and rather than use my actual
digital camera which was not at hand, I relied on my "emergency use"
cell phone, basic technology from 2007 if I remember correctly. There is
nothing smart about my cell phone, it has five emergency numbers programmed in
to it and it takes very rudimentary photos at best, a lesson I learned the hard
way and as I look at the phone know and look for a focus app I ask myself, what
focus? Of course I didn't learn how poor quality the photos were until after
the pot was gone and out the door, yet a new lesson learned. This 11" tall
vase was thrown out of stoneware, incised with a thin, sharpened piece of
bamboo and later glazed using my lepidolite Oribe glaze, a glaze which I use
exceedingly sparingly but that is what was asked for. Though I use a number of Oribe
style glazes, this particular one using lepidolite has a quality that I can
just not seem to 100% reproduce without the rare material, especially the
unique iridescence that it produces. Where slightly thicker around the mouth,
the glaze is this intense, deep green pool that is just one of my favorite
effects on pottery and mostly isolated to various Oribe, Iga and Shigaraki
pottery. I apologize for the poor quality of the photo but since I am making
very few pots in this glaze, I thought it may be worth sharing and the lesson
that goes along with it.
I wouldn't bother enlarging the photo, it
only gets worse the larger it gets!
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