My first encounter with the work of Ochiai Miyoko dates back to the
Kikuchi Collection exhibition and the wave of simplicity and subtlety is
immediate, a dialogue of potter, some clay, some slip and an ideal. Learning
much of her craft and perhaps some of her sensibility in clay from Suzuki Osamu
(Kyoto), Ochiai made her way to creating Chinese T'su chou inspired slipware at
which she excels. Using very few materials and most times sparse and simplified
decorations the work is alive with white, black and shades in between that seem
spirited and alive on the clay canvas. Flowers, butterfly, birds and even cats
are stripped down to the barest essentials and are in flight, moving and even
manipulated by the wind though the curves of the pots has something to do with
it as well. I am really not sure that I have seen such simple pots that say as
much with so little as does the work of Ochiai Miyoko. Illustrated
is a B&W picture of an eminently simple Ochiai Miyoko meiping influenced
vase in the T'su chou style casting its shadow in the late afternoon. The vase
is seductive and the lines unfettered creating a rather graceful visage that is
as much about purity of form and curves as anything else. The body of the buff
white stoneware is first dipped in a rather pure white slip, you can see her
finger marks at the base of the piece and then she brushes on deep, black slip
which is carved to define the decoration and then fired with a thin clear glaze
over. The results seem to spring right out of a different time, perchance the
Sung Dynasty though all of the work says as much about modern times as it does
of antiquity and that is certainly a rather good thing.
"The
subtlest of subtleties, this is the gateway to all mysteries." Lao Tsu
.JPG)