KONDO KOHIKI

Old, antique and honest spring to mind as I look at this kohiki chawan. I see the origins of Korean pottery rooted in the very soil and surface of this chawan and in fact the work of much of the pottery made by Kondo Saeki. The bowl form is unpretentious, practical and eminently functional for tea ceremony or an evening meal yet there is a hint of subtle and sequestered nobility that is like an aroma surrounding the bowl. The surface is old, desiccated even but full of movement and life down to the fractured and crackled slip covering the iron rich clay to the alkaline appearance of the glaze that pools and runs to create a rich blue green tint that is pleasant to the eye and adds to the overall aesthetic of simplicity balanced with complexity.    

Kondo Saeki has dedicated his creation to explore slipware and has mastered this style of kohiki ware as passed along to him by his master, potter and scholar, Koyama Fujio. Kondo opened his own studio and kiln in the mid-70s, Haruzawa-gama in Mizunami, Gifu Prefecture where he has challenged himself to create fine works inspired by and dedicated to his master (Koyama) that show the classicism of modern Japanese wood fired kohiki ware. This particular chawan has a richness and complexity of surface that has sprung from the simplest of techniques; throw a bowl, dip it in slip and then glaze and fire it, which kind of reminds me at its core of Sen (no) Rikyu's explanation of the tea ceremony, "first you boil water and then you make tea and drink it".