Though
I would be hard pressed to date this positively old school rustic wood fired mallet
vase, if pushed I would guess it was likely made in the mid-1970s. Made by
Takauchi Shugo, just prior to this date he had changed his life and put suit
and tie on a rack and traded them in for more practical pottery making cloths;
jeans, apron, denim shirt, the new uniform of a craftsman. Quite a number of
Shugo's early work are strictly wood fired, haikaburi style or glazed and wood
fired with a wonderful range of surfaces that speak less about Mashiko where he
ended up than about an inner vision bursting at the seams. It would be hard to
confuse this mallet vase for Mashiko-yaki
having a more Bizen, Echizen or even Tokoname appearance based on a more
traditional and rigid form seen by many of the earlier potters but not quite
like the forms of Arakawa and Tsukigata for instance. That being said, the
surface compliments the form rather nicely making for a rich appearance on a
rugged and honest pot. Though I greatly appreciate and even covet Takeuchi
Shugo's broad interpretation of Oribe ware I find his early wood and salt fired
pots quite enthralling and worth all the attention they can absorb.
There is an old quote by Alexander Pope that has always intrigued me, it goes;
"An honest man's the noblest work of God", if this is reasonable or
true, is an honest pot the noblest work of a potter?
.JPG)