Wednesday, July 2, 2025
CANNOLI COUNTRY
Monday, June 30, 2025
Friday, June 27, 2025
BROWN
I made this short video slideshow a number of years ago of a rather large, over 16” tall sake bottle by Ningen Kokuho, Fujiwara Kei. This video shows off a rich array of details that all come together to make for a rather intriguing and memorable (brown) Bizen pot. Enjoy the slideshow.
Wednesday, June 25, 2025
HOPE & TESTING II
Monday, June 23, 2025
CREATIVE BLEND
Friday, June 20, 2025
ALL THAT JAZZ
Wednesday, June 18, 2025
WAY BACK WHEN
To be clear, I am not saying I invented this but rather I had never physically encountered it before nor had I seen it any magazine or publication (this did pre-date the internet by quite a few years). What I can say about this surface is that I did not decide to carry out this testing based on something I had seen but rather something else, arts and crafts pottery and reduction lusters on majolica triggered this whole line of inquiry. Before I seemed to move on from this technique, I had also started firing small pieces in saggers that had pulverized charcoal and sometimes oxides mixed in and spread around the base of the enclosures to further effect the surface. Honestly like much of my testing over the years this was highly enjoyable having an idea and being able to put it into practice and reality to make this wonky "new" Shino come to life.
(*As sure as the earth spins around the Sun, am sure that someone out there is going to pre-date my testing and use of this glaze)
Monday, June 16, 2025
BLAST FROM THE PAST
This mentori-hanaire is pure simplicity, perfect lines, full, dynamic volume and a surface that is one part simplicity and another part complexity in just measured balance. Adding to the landscape, each faceted line shows through the slip along with part of the lip focusing one’s attention away from the purity of the surface, surveying details that almost seem out of place yet end up helping to define the form and pot overall. It is clear that Yoshimura spent a lifetime pursuing and dedicated to kohiki slipware while adding his own modern and idiosyncratic fingerprint to a rather old tradition which spans centuries and countries in its origin.
Friday, June 13, 2025
A BIT OF EVERYTHING
I am sure that I am repetitive in my use of descriptions
for a great number of wood fired pots but despite that fact, I think I choose
my words somewhat carefully and with an eye on what I am actually thinking and
not some device easily put to use. What gets me there is this katakuchi style
mizusashi, truly this has that medieval, old presence, like it was plucked out
of the kitchen and pressed into service by some tea master of old including the
manufacturing of a custom lid to complete the package. The surface both inside
and out is just a wonderful array of effects, a bit of everything as it were,
on this well fired pot, crafted by the hands Sugimoto Sadamitsu and fired under
his watchful eye and decades of experience to make such a simple, humble and captivating
vessel.
Timeless, another descriptor I use well too often is
perhaps among the best ways to characterize this mizusashi as it is seemingly
not bound in the past or the present, it somehow is on its very own parallel
timeline. The foot is flat and covered in ash while the front and back present
somewhat differing landscapes where the one side is covered in streaking,
cascading ash and the other is a blend of runny ash and rich red hi-iron
color fumed during the firing. However, it is the interior that holds the
biggest surprise, once the custom lacquer lid is removed, the interior is a
series of waterfalls that culminate in a large, pure emerald green pool that is
a bit like encountering a pot at the end of the proverbial rainbow. Timeless,
wabi-sabi, medieval, classic; in the end it doesn’t matter how it is described,
this Shigaraki mizusashi has quite the landscape and just sings instead of
speaking.