Friday, February 22, 2019

MONOCHROME?

I am a bit surprised now and again when a photo and description of a pot are quite different than what the piece looks like in person whether it is a piece that I visit or a piece that is sent my way. Recently I received a bowl that looked like a solid temmoku chawan and to affirm that thought, the box clearly reads; temmoku chawan, nothing more, nothing less. As soon as I opened the package and box it was obvious that what I was looking at was no ordinary, monochrome temmoku but rather a surface more akin to some style of yuteki-temmoku with vivid, if dark spots with luster surrounds inside and out. I put together this rather short video slideshow of the temmoku chawan by Kimura Morinobu and as you can see the variety in the spotting and streaking makes for a rather active, animated surface and certainly quite distant from a monochrome surface. I will also mention that Kimura Morinobu's works have interested me since our Japan, Kyoto visits back in the early 1990s. I have handled a number of his pots and enjoy the way he handles clay in a no-nonsense and direct manner based on function and created to please the eye. I hope this short video slideshows gives a glimpse of what the piece has to say in person.