HERE TODAY, GONE TOMORROW

Illustrated is a two-vue collage or a rather nice Oni-Shino vase form by Tsukigata Nahiko. The photo was taken on a desktop in natural light which shows off the form and surface quite well but perhaps the really eye catching performing in this production is all of the all natural running ash on nearly the entire surface. With areas of crusty ash build up around the mouth, running iron peeking out from underneath the shimmering crystalline fractured Shino glaze which has become infused with the ash from the wood kiln to activate and animate the entire surface.

I was able to handle and study this sturdy pot for a short while, here today, gone tomorrow thanks to a fellow collector who has an rather nice collection of a number of potters that I am really enamored with. It was rather satisfying to have this very classic Oni-Shino pot around at the very same time that I had another Tsukigata vase out on display. The two pieces though linked by the commonality of the term Oni-Shino are very different in their appearance, there was this one based predominantly on the lighter Shino surface and the other that was painted with a lot more iron, a face covered in a nice coating of ash and a large area of thick green ash which in the end divided the pot into thirds in terms of its surface. Though they may have been quite different in their presentation, the posture, strength and vision of Oni-Shino is clearly painted across the surface of the easily identifiable forms of Tsukigata Nahiko.