IMPACT II

Quite some time back I put up a post entitled IMPACT showing off the velocity and ferocity on a large Shigaraki tsubo and promptly forgot about putting up an overall of the pot until now. This large and very well fired Shigaraki tsubo was made by Takahashi Shunsai using the coil and throw method and honestly has the presence of a pot much older that it is as if it finds its origins in the simple and direct Sue wares that proceeded many of the modern rokkoyo, the six ancient kilns. It is rather obvious what direction this tsubo was facing in the kiln and the wonderful tendrils of one time liquid ash try their best to reach around the fullness of the form but fall short yet paint a wonderful narrative of their efforts. With the front 60% covered in ash and the remainder in a rich, wet hi-iro, the pot has a stellar sense of softness and movement that makes for a rather captivating use of volume and space that can be broken down in to honesty and simplicity and letting the firing speak as loudly as the undecorated form.

WRONG HAND, WRONG CLAY

When it comes to slip trailing, the bulk of my work is done on terra cotta using black and white slips, though other colors do occasionally come in to play. It has been a rather long time since I have slip trailed either stoneware or porcelain but over the past year of so I have been sneaking a few pieces in to the kiln now and again as both tests for glaze surfaces but also working out various design or decoration ideas. The illustrated bowl was fired recently and was thrown out of stoneware, black slipped and then had white slip trailed over the surface. Now here is where the difference comes to play, I am a natural left hander and write, paint and slip trail with my left hand, in this particular set of bowls I used my right hand to create a more spontaneous and less controlled look and if nothing else I think I succeeded in what I was after. I used a combination of a clear glaze with a very thin layer of saffron iron over the piece to get this slightly amber and runny looking appearance. I like the motion of the slip and surface working together and think that this isn't too bad an attempt using the wrong hand and the wrong clay and temperature range. There is another teabowl from this slight deviation which is firing now and hopefully it will turn out as well though it is quite a bit difference in approach and influences. Time and temperature will tell.

PHOTOGRAPHIC DISCREPANCY

I thought this made for quite an interesting picture, one that could spark a certain amount of conversation about what a thing looks like and one's expectation or perception of it based on a photographic image. Though I posted a photo of this Iga vase by Kishimoto Kennin quite some time ago I thought it worth revisiting since an exhibition catalogue featuring the same piece had surfaced and made for some interesting comparisons and some degree of photographic discrepancy. What is immediately apparent is how radically different the color scheme is from left to right and though a photo of a photo, the exhibition picture just lacks any spark or life where the one on the right has a richness and movement showcasing the cascading ash as gravity and heat took over during the intensity of the firing. As I survey the catalogue photo with my older picture, circa 2012, it is almost as if these are not the same pot, rather one being a distilled , diluted version of the real thing where approximation was more than enough when illustrated. One thing I can tell you having seen the pot in person is that as different as these two pictures appear, the same can be said when viewing the pot in hand though that is not always the case where a skilled photographer can make a lesser pot looks so much more. In the end and to be clear, I am not trying to disparage the catalogue system and photographer but rather to point out that you can't always judge a book by its cover or a pot by its photograph.  

"If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is, infinite."  William Blake

IN ARCA AUTEM NON EST HINC

Over the years of being around Japanese pottery, the topic of signed wood boxes seems to be a constant discussion likening pots without boxes to the undesirables from the Island of Lost Toys. Though I am an absolute believer that if at all possible a pot should have its original signed box or an attested one, I have long ago concluded that at the core, I collect pots and the boxes are secondary, a necessary evil if you will. For those that have been around collecting off of a specific ubiquitous auction site, the early days was filled with unboxed, unidentified pots ranging from semi-commercial all the way to Okabe Mineo, Hamada Shoji, Kawai Kanjiro and even Rosanjin and trust me, few collectors I know were going to let the lack of a box stop them from bidding.     

How I got on this topic was a recent purchase I made, a rather affordable but unboxed Iga hanaire (Yama-Iga) made by Furutani Michio. As you can see in the photo, this vase is patterned after a classic early Iga archetype with wonderfully gestural marks and lugs creating a somewhat whimsical pot with the addition of a nice firing and ash to wet the surface and move especially through the incised markings made by the potter. At the very first glance, this is a classic Furutani Michio pot from form and posture to the maker's marks and the firing and I think few would need a box to inform them of its creator. I guess my real point is box or no box there are some pots that easily make that decision a no-brainer.

15 MINUTES OR SO

Every now and again I like to take some amount of clay and make something from start to finish (well tooled and greenware) and in this case I choose 2.5lbs of the sandy stoneware clay I had recently mixed up from scratch. Truth be told, the actual time according to my clay encrusted and nearly impossible to read studio stopwatch read just shy of 22 minutes, but who is counting and here is the finished pot. The idea from this came from a machinery video on Youtube where this large square die then stepped down into a smaller, tapered square and was stamping out square copper planter liners at a billion an hour. 

I went with this idea, threw the form, squared out the top, bowl portion and rasped and stamped it for interesting texture before addressing the foot/ base. Using a wire, I roughed out the base and then rasped it to a slightly tapered conclusion before tooling out the interior. There is absolutely nothing perfect about this piece but that was not my end goal, even with the lines a little adrift, I think the idea is sound and maybe if I actually made a series and took my time, who knows how this idea may come out or morph in to something else. The bottom line is that with some classic 80s remixes playing and the bulk of my next two terra cotta kiln loads now finished and drying, it was enjoyable to just take some time to play in the clay. 

HAMAGURI-KODAI (!)

When I first saw this wonky chawan I couldn't help but think what a unique and unusual foot, then I remembered what I was looking at and who it was made by and then I thought, well of course it is different. This collage depicts two views of the same foot from a somewhat wonky Bizen chawan by Kakurezaki Ryuichi and as I mentioned innovative, different and unusual go hand in hand with this potter. What you can clearly see is this bifurcated, wari-kodai style foot that forms a deceptively stable pedestal for what is a rather elongated bowl form all dressed up in a rich coating of ash across the face and interior with a wet fumed layer of ash on the rear. Thrown separately and attached to the bowl, the foot is highly animated and a perfect addition to complete the form while creating a focal point that to most is a bit of a surprise and even a novel approach for the kodai of a teabowl.     

I should also mention that when I first saw this chawan I couldn't help but be reminded of a comic strip from my high school years, B.C. by Johnny Hart. There was an ongoing joke where one of the B.C. gang spots a clam running on two legs and exclaims, "Clams got legs!" to which the clam quips, "Now I have to kill him.". This association is not meant to disparage the chawan (which I just love) in the least but I do have to say, every time I looked at the bowl or pictures of it, I can't help but smiling ever so slightly.

STARTING POINT

This picture was taken from an exhibition catalogue from Showa 53 and I was immediately struck by its wonderful shape and simple, even subtle surface. I love chawan of this shape, they fit the hands so well and the form flows perfectly from kodai to lip, to my eye this is the marriage of the old and the new. This chawan is simply identified as "Karatsu Chawan" and was made by Arakawa Toyozo so not the typical surface one is used to seeing but with every new book or catalogue I see the definition of his work expanded bit by bit. One of the reason I suspect that I honed on this chawan and the form is that if you strip away the glaze surface and try to imagine the bones of the pot, it is rather clear where Tsukigata Nahiko set his foundation for his forms and how a teabowl moves and occupies space. I am not saying that Tsukigata slavishly copied Arakawa, rather the principles and fundamentals of form are taught in the master's work and literally provide for a foundation to build on to create a more personalized vocabulary.  I think it is easy to see Arakawa in the bones, the foundations of all who studied with him (and many that did not) but it is what you do with that knowledge that shows the vision and character of  the individual and this chawan is certainly a great starting point for any potter East or West.

DOUBLE LAYERED NERIAGE (?)

I decided to kick the neriage concept up a notch, well at least for me and how I use it. The first step was to wedge black and white porcelains together and then once that was done I added to thick bars of black to the wedged cone at diagonals with as little wedging done as possible. I intentionally minimized the centering process and just threw the clay to the desired shape as quickly as possible and as you can see there is a finer pattern behind the bolder (which if you look closely you can see inside the larger areas of black), black pattern that stands in front creating a rather interesting overall effect. As I am quick to point out, this isn't exactly rocket science though I do like the contrast of fine and bold pattern circling the teabowl and I am not sure I have seen this done before and thought it was a novel approach to add something else to the neriage that I make from time to time. I should mention that I choose black to add as a secondary addition because I was concerned that using a less bold clay, the pattern from the rear would show through the top layer making things more confusing than harmonious and at the end of the day, that makes for a perfect outcome.    

"Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end."  Lucius Annaeus Seneca 

MAKER'S MARKS

I was thinking about  marks made, various maker's marks and I remembered this picture of an incised, marked Iga vase by Furutani Michio. While I realize that a large number of marks made on a the breathe of modern wood fired Japanese pottery are in fact based on historical archetypes, most potters add their own unique qualities to these renderings much the same way that handwriting differs from one individual to another. I am not going so far as to say it would be easy to recognize this design and marks made as those of Furutani Michio but there is certainly a way in which he worked that is possible to clue in on from tools used, his existing vocabulary of marks, the speed and even depth of these traces made permanent. 

In regards to this decoration, I have seen this on two other vases, both Iga style that though not exactly the same they certainly bare enough similarities that if you showed all three it wouldn't take much of an argument to conclude they are all by the same hand.  One other thing that I wonder about regarding Furutani Michio's work is do these marks have some deeper, personal meaning beyond their use on older, feudal pieces?  The first time that I saw this design I was struck that it immediately conjured up memories of small road side shrines (dosojin) that you occasionally encounter while travelling in Japan and now find in antique shops, flea markets and even museums. As I look at these marks, I know what springs to my mind and am curious what did Furutani Michio see as he moved clay and articulated the surface with these simple marks?

ONI-HAGI

This tall, elegant henko has an intriguing history though I suspect a common one among collectors. Years ago I was offered this piece by a Japanese dealer and realizing the price was beyond our budget, I asked if I could show the photos to a fellow collector and as luck would have it, he wanted the vase. the pot was packed up and shipped to me first, I got to handle it for an afternoon and then it was repacked and sent on its way out west. This was not going to be the end of the story though as years later the collector decided to get out of modern Japanese pottery and move on to something else and luckily I was able to trade for this Hagi vase and several other pieces some of which we kept and others we found new homes for. At any rate, long story, short this Miwa Kyusetsu henko now has a space on a shelf somewhere in central New York.   

I first saw a group of these Hagi henko on display at a dealers in Kyoto in the early 90s, there were seven of this nearly identical form, all by different potters including Miwa Kyusetsu XI (late Jyusetsu 1910-2012) and a student and some contemporaries. I was immediately struck by the forest like grouping but more so by the wonderful towering proportions and posture of this piece, with a slight twist and ever so slightly leaning curvature as if standing against the wind, bracing itself to insure it function, its purposes sculpted in to clay. If you study the form made of a rich daido clay and surface made up of ash and a handful of other materials you can almost read 350 years of tradition and experience of the Miwa family in each and every pot. It is hard to not be engaged, enthralled even in the way the form and edges create a mixture of the formal and casual in the clay and the white surface, blushed pink with white crystals sprinkled across the piece paint a timeless and intoxicating landscape best known as Oni-Hagi.

BLANKS

This is just a quick picture of a blank canvas, an unadorned pot, I made this teabowl as a test and need it bone dry before I can proceed. When I was looking at this bowl, just after tooling the foot I was reminded of a workshop I taught quite a while back where I was asked by a participant who did not throw* if I could make her one of my teabowls so that she could decorate it. Since the workshop revolved around testing surfaces, I had a dozen teabowls made as "blanks", tooled one and gave it to her but it was the next part that really has stuck with me all these years later. She asked, "what should I do with it now?" and without really giving it any thought I simple responded, the possibilities are endless and it was at that moment that I concluded that was the most honest thing I have ever stated regarding pottery. If you take even one minute to look around the internet, what do you see? We live in an age where everyone who works in clay has not only a different approach and surface but luckily many show off the endless possibilities over the web. Though much of my work revolves around styles that I have been working with for most of my pottery career, every time I test and try out new ideas I realize, if I had ten lifetimes that it is still quite likely that the possibilities will continue to be endless and that suits me just fine. 

(*FWIW I offered to teach her to throw as the "give a person a fish, teach a person to fish parable sprung to mind but after 40+ years of making pottery, she was just not interested.)

ALL BUSINESS VIDEO

I took a few minutes this morning to build a short video slideshow of the Fujioka Shuhei Iga chawan that I put up in a previous post. As I mentioned before, this bowl is all business though filled with character, purpose and an homage to a medieval tradition. As I look around the bowl, well the pictures, I am reminded of an old emakimono scroll from the Momoyama period where the story and narration unfold as you go around the chawan with varying details painting a simple and deep picture of Fujioka's understanding of tradition. I hope this short video slideshow gives a slightly more in-depth understanding of this Iga chawan.

TIMES TWO (X2)

Now I love drippy ash and unctuous Shino, thick fractured celadon, large, wonky forms, brazen postures and forms but when I turn that chawan over and find a brilliant kodai that is well beyond the perfunctory and is devoid of flash and gimmick, quite frankly, I am really happy! A kodai that has true purpose and is distinctly creative that completes a form should be a given as a feature of a 360º, six sided object and anything less just takes away from what could have otherwise been a rather nice bowl. I have never really considered myself a "foot" person but over several decades it has become perfectly clear just how absolutely essential the skill of creating a good kodai really is and how many potters abdicate their responsibility for expediency and economy of time and simplicity of form. A  good kodai takes time, effort and lots and lots of practice where learning the mastery of throwing a bowl may only take several years, the foot can take a lifetime of evolving, mastering the art of removing, sculpting and crafting that creates an element that is not only complimentary but serves its "prime directive" of function is a delicate process despite how seemingly brutal the actual cutting and creative process can be.

Illustrated are two uniquely different chawan, almost as different as night and day though linked through the commonality of purpose, size, form and of course the necessity of a foot. On the left is a well fired Iga chawan with a great presence, a casual posture and just the right amount of "wonkiness" to captivate the eye and underneath the chassis is a very well cut kodai that not only is a perfect fit but it is pleasing to the eye and hand as well. The chawan on the right is a fun, almost playful hikidashi-guro chawan that obviously takes its cues from modern Oribe pottery at some level and like the Iga chawan, the kodai is very well matched to the chawan in both spirit and purpose. As disparate as this two chawan are, there is an even greater connection between them, they were both created by the same potter, Kojima Kenji who created these two unique styles and forms and made a somewhat similar style kodai match perfectly despite all the differences in form and surface. As I have mentioned, I love a really good chawan with an equally good kodai, I enjoy the enthusiasm of the process and the finished effort, the spirit of the creative solution and boundaries that can be pushed at, stretched and warped a bit and in the end be mindful to a function that goes back to the earliest pots ever created, does the pot work?