ALL IN

After a recent encounter with a rather nice temmoku chawan by Kimura Morinobu, I searched around and was watching a video of him at work and in a section of the video it shows him tooling the feet of some of his chawan. The illustrated screen capture comes from that video and shows the sequence and style of how he addresses the kodai of his chawan, they all display a common thread, wonderful clay texturing from the tool, direct, fast and just right for each bowl with an attached little pad, stamped with his maker's mark applied after they are tooled. One of the other things I have noticed is that he tends to make a narrower foot, much like those on old Korean rice-bowls which I prefer to a broader foot. I like that a bowl rests on a smaller pedestal and jumps up from that point, asking to be picked up and held. I am sure I have said this before but nothing can sink a chawan faster than a bad kodai and in looking at countless pieces by Kimura Morinobu, it is obvious even in their practiced spontaneity that his thoughtful, all in approach to pottery starts with the throwing, moves on to the trimming, glazing/ decorating and is completed with his firing and it could be nothing less.