GRAND PURPOSE

Looking a bit like a battlefield of both competing and complimentary textures and hues of color, this Oribe chawan is evidence of modernity in a tradition that has proliferated chadogu for nearly five centuries. This Oribe chawan was made by Tsukamoto Haruhiko and is the embodiment of a new spirit within the Mino tradition where the old and new collide to create new surfaces, forms, styles and firing techniques to add to a long standing tradition. Though many of the features may appear traditional from form and playful exterior, the way in which textures, slips and throwing and tooling are employed, there is a distinct freshness to much of Tsukamoto's work, there is both animation and abstraction worked into the clay which springboards off the playful intent of the earliest Oribe ware. I think what I normally bring away from after a Tsukamoto Haruhiko encounter is a sense of being visually and texturally amused and though they are designed and made for use and ceremony both, harnassing both exuberence and solemnity in a three dimensional form is likely their grandest purpose.