AMALGAM

There is no missing exactly who the potter is when you are looking at a piece by Fujioka Shuhei from his earliest to latest creations. Fujioka’s work has a naturally heavy appearance with the attitude and posture of being stoic to a fault, the blocky appearances and manner in which the pot is formed and articulated is almost singularly ascribed to this one potter. This particular pot is thick and sturdy, coerced into a more or less cubic form with a variety of potter’s marks across the surface like scars accrued in the process of the clay being told where to go. Beyond the basic appearance and forms, Fujioka’s firing tends to be rather distinctive as well and in this case the landscape is a mixture of thick and thin green ash married with areas of grey to black due to the charcoal bed built up around the base of the piece during the firing. What is clear from this mizusashi and most of the work of Fujioka Shuhei is the raw strength willed into existence into each pot, a perfect and unique amalgam of potter, clay, process and firing unlike no other.  

“Strength is a matter of the made up mind” - John Beecher