UNUSUAL ENCOUNTER

I have to be perfectly honest, I am not very inclined to use the term "rare" and when exactly it should come in to play, instead I think it safe to say that this particular pot is unusual and encounters may be few and far between. Over the years I have seen  a handful of this particular style of Oni-Hagi by Tsukigata Nahiko where the glaze is thick and white in certain respects much like that of the Late Miwa Kyuwa and Miwa Kyusetsu XI, the pots were a couple of chawan, a few cylindrical vases, a mizusashi and this geometrically inclined te-oke hanaire.       

Looking a bit like the form was hacked out of a block of clay kurinuki style, this pot was thrown and then worked squared, faceted and had texture and a handle applied to finish off the study, stoic and potent pot completed with a carefully and painterly applied coating of this thick, luscious Oni-Hagi glaze. As you can see the use of bare clay and slight texture adds a dimension of casualness to the pot while the heavy, curdled and crawled texture of the white glaze compliments the form and adds dimension, topography that animates the vase. I think I should also point out some of the small details that keep this form fresh and animated from the curved planes at the very top of the pot to the careful and restrained use of texture on portions of the form and the thick and rough clay formed when the pot was faceted which adds considerable stability and visual weight to the vase that likely would be lesser for its omission; all details that help construct the whole. In the end it goes without saying that this pot is an exercise in line and texture, a slight departure from the more curvilinear forms that Tsukigata Nahiko is best known for but well within his ability to see and understand form especially under the weight of thick glazes, a skill at which he had mastered long before this pot was even considered.