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.
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