COMPLIMENTARY

I realize that I have posted each of these pots up before, individually but since my computer crash, I have been salvaging pictures and files from the old to the new. In doing so, I ran across this photo where both the Kohyama Yasuhisa haikaburi chawan and the Takahashi Shunsai Shigaraki mizusashi were here at the same time. What strikes me about these pots is the diversity of approach from the rather traditional Shigaraki style to the more modern, haikaburi firing of Kohyama. Despite their possible “ideological” and firing differences, these two distinct surfaces work well with each other, complimentary in their aesthetics and function. As you boil (!) down the intention of each of these vessels where the simplest instructions of “boil water, prepare tea and drink it”*, both this chawan and mizusashi are up to the task where simplicity and the uncluttered are the ideal. 

( *Rikyu’s distillation of what tea ceremony, chanoyu is essentially about.)