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.