IGA BY WAY OF BIZEN

I'll start out by saying this is a rather old picture, it probably dates to the early 2000s and when I first saw a jpeg of this piece I realized that I wasn't looking at typical Iga ware despite the description on the wood box. At first glance the form seemed a bit alien to the Iga tradition having a relationship to a number of Bizen mizusashi that I have seen over the years and once the piece arrived here, I realized immediately that my concerns were right on point. This Iga-yaki mizusashi was made by Kaneshige Moto'o, (b.1945) the forth son of Kaneshige Toyo who after years at another job set up a studio in Misugi, Mie Prefecture and proceeded to create Iga-yaki, relying on the natural ash of the firing  to best suit his forms and pottery style. It is quite easy to understand that coming out of the mainline Kaneshige family and growing up around the potter of his father Toyo and brothers Michiaki and Kosuke that the sense of Bizen forms and pottery making would be well rooted in the subconscious and that is rather clear in this form though the clay and surface is much more about Iga than Bizen.