ODD ENCOUNTER

I vividly remember my first encounter with the work of Kotoge Katsuyoshi (Tanzan), we were in Kyoto in the early 90s and walked in to a gallery that had a myriad of his highly decorative pieces of Kyo-yaki on display, perhaps 30 pieces or so though mostly chawan, mizusashi, cha-tsubo and a few hanaire. There were precise, meticulous and everything one would want from Kyo-yaki but truth be told, just not our taste. When we left the gallery we went and had a beverage and pastry at a shop located next to another gallery that really caught my eye. In the window was a rather formal but very well fired Shigaraki vase right next to an Iga mizusashi literally covered in ash from head to toe and front to back, an utsushimono of a 17th century piece. When we went in there were seven or eight more piece all by the same potter, Kotoge Katsuyoshi! What I went on to learn is that Kotoge had studied with two rather high profile potters, Shimaoka Tatsuzo and Miyagawa Makuzu Kosai V given him a tremendous exposure to two very different styles of work and techniques geared to fanciful Kyo-yaki and rugged wood fired pottery. Besides having a deep immersion into the woodfired pottery in Mashiko under Shimaoka, Miyagawa Kosai V was actually known for having made some Shigaraki style fired pottery from which Kotoge would have had been exposed to during his apprenticeship.      

I should also mention that if Kyo-yaki, Shigaraki and Iga pottery was not enough for his repertoire, Kotoge Katsuyoshi is also rather well known for his simple and unpretentious Karatsu ware that focuses on chadogu, pieces used for chanoyu which he has practiced for over four decades. In an interview done while exhibiting in Spain in 2013-2014 Kotoge went on to explain that and I am only paraphrasing; most potters who create (or make) chawan rarely know the difference in spirit between a food bowl and a true chawan.  This is a subject that comes up quite frequently I must admit, where scholars, authors, tea experts and the like hold this continued opinion.     

Illustrated is a pot, a seemingly odd encounter that got me to this post in the first place, a classic Iga style mizusashi made by Kotoge Tanzan (Katsuyoshi) in 1990, the year of our first trip to Japan. As you can see in the picture, the entire surface of the pot is covered in a nice, glassy coating of ash though the other side also has a good amount of charring and charcoal like effect  as well, but what is really intriguing is that though very much based on an early Iga pot, this form has a sense of refinement that shows off his classical Kyoto, Kyo-yaki roots. The dichotomy of blending both Iga and Kyoto aesthetics makes for a rather idiosyncratic form which is easy to expect from Kotoge and his background in wood firing and Kyo-yaki. I think that even all these years later it is still a bit of a shock every time I see these rustic, wood fired pots from the hand of Kotoge Tanzan but having seen so many of his pots since my first encounter it makes all the sense in the world how his work would be so very different yet exactly the same.