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?