ANOTHER SIDE

Illustrated is a detail shot of a stoneware glazed hachi with overglaze painting in red and green enamels. This tray form showcases another side of Kato Kenji who was best known for his Persian blue pottery and as this piece shows he was quite adept at making stoneware pottery and wonderful enamel painting. In fact, Kato Kenji was so well known for these enamel painted hachi that Arakawa Toyozo mentions them in; THE TRADITION AND TECHNIQUE OF MINO POTTERY and one was choosen as part of a traveling exhibition of modern Japanese pottery that toured the United States a number of years ago which included the likes of Arakawa, Tomimoto, Rosanjin, Kawai and Hamada. Though much of his overglaze enamel work is also influenced by the pottery of ancient Persia and the Middle-East, this decoration is purely Japanese in inspiration and execution and I can not help but be impressed by the wispy and quick pace that the design vokes. It is important to see the varying styles of a potter and this hachi shows just one facet in the arsenal of Kato Kenji's pottery from traditional Mino-yaki, Temmoku and Persian influenced pottery and a few surprises in between.

BLUE MONDAY XXI

I put together this slideshow from pictures I had taken some time ago, the bottle/vase is a Persian influenced piece, toruko-ao style by Kato Kenji. The vivid foliate underglaze decoration reminds me of both Persian tiles and illustrated manuscripts of a time long ago. This is a simple pot with a streamlined form created by panels along the surface that were made to decorate. I am always impressed by the attention to detail and all the effort that goes in to each and every pot by Kato Kenji, despite size, form or surface, he tried to create vivid and animated pots every time he sat at the wheel and later when putting brush to clay. I hope that sentiment is better understood through this slideshow.

BLUE MONDAY XVIII

I know it must seem that I seem to gravitate to the same potters over and over again. Truth is, I have really broad, eccentric and diverse tastes when it comes to pots (music and movies as well) though less so when it comes to food! In terms of pottery with blue glazes, there are actually not that many that I really enjoy beyond the Kawai school gosu, Kato Takuo and Kobei VII, Kato Kenji and a handful of others. It is most likely for this reason that I tend to focus on a select group for these "Blue Monday" posts and this one will be no exception.

Illustrated is a large Raqqa (toruko-ao) influenced blue vase by Kato Kenji. Thrown round and then the mouth formed in to an hexagon, the pot was decorated with his trademark black decoration which has run a bit blue at the lip. The wonderful flared mouth is complimented by small pierced lugs on either side of the vase that along with the geometric patterning help define the form and its graceful stance to near perfection. I am drawn to the skillful throwing, simple lines, well executed decoration and honesty of the pots of Kato Kenji which snake along some imaginary timeline of the Silk Road that has found its way to Japan and become just as much Japanese as Persian in the hands of this thoughtful and enthusiastic practitioner.

I suspect this vase was made in the early 1980's and I thought this tune somewhat appropriate, the1983 classic Blue Monday by New Order.

BLUE MONDAY VII

Today was another one of those Mondays, it started out very dreary and overcast  and has become a rather pleasant, if cool day in the Mohawk Valley. I spent the day firing off a glaze kiln and throwing plates and separating out finished work to see what needs to be done. The throwing got me thinking about one of the curious side effects of starting this blog; the number of people who I have been able to reconnect with, because they stumbled, or possibly went looking, for me on the web. I have reconnected with family, friends, old clientele and collectors and I have the blog and the internet to thank for that.

I also was able to reconnect with a potter, who I knew in passing from Cleveland. At one point in her travels, said potter had the opportunity to meet with my favorite Persian influenced potter, Kato Kenji and she was able to get one of his formula for his unique blue glazes, which she has very kindly passed on to me (Thanks, Jo!).  After I finish my terra cotta run, I'll order some Cone 2 cones and will try my hand at this recipe. I have made up 10 pounds of clay that I used a long time back in Cleveland for a project at about cone 2 and hope to get this tested sometime after Nov. Like everything else, one step at a time and all in good time.

Illustrated is a Persian influenced vase by Kato Kenji (1933-2008). The vase was thrown round and then gently paddled square in form, the foot is carefully carved out to compliment the form. Under the crisp electric blue glaze is a fluid decoration in dark black pigment which takes on a decidedly blue tint as it peaks through to the surface. This particular design is seen on a number of Kato Kenji's works as it was easily adapted to a wide array of forms and works well to animate the surfaces of any given pot.

MONDAY BLUES V

It is very cold here, minus 11 degrees f. when I got up, overcast and generally not the best Monday to start a week. Pots usually help and act as a natural mood elevator, so what could be better than Persian blue. Illustrated is a finely thrown Turoku-ao guinomi by Kato Kato. The decoration shows tones of blue from the cobalt used to make the black underglaze under the rich alkaline based Persian blue glaze. Kato Kenji was a master at Turoku-ao and his fluid and spontaneous brushwork is just wonderfully expressive and matches and articulates the form like few others. 

TORUKO-AO GUINOMI

Illustrated is a sweet Turoku-ao, Persian style guinomi by Kato Kenji (1933-2008). The soft curving bowl shape rests on a perfect pedestal style foot and is decorated with casual and fluid underglaze black decoration under a soda blue glaze. Kato Kenji was a veteran Mino potter who made works in a wide variety of traditional styles, but in my mind, he was a Persian specialist. His Persian styles consisted of this wet, transparent glaze, a thicker, more opague blue glaze and his overglaze enamel decoration in Persian, almost Scythian motifs. Though greatly influenced by various archetypes, Kato Kenji’s pots are readily identifiable as his work. Though modern (20^th century) in exectution, the one thing that Kato captured above all others, is a sense of timelessness. When encountered, there is that lingering question, are these new or are they old?

KEEPING ONES DISTANCE

“Do not make a new form and design from an old pattern, I was always told. Turquoise is one of the oldest colors used in ceramics. It was produced by applying hashokuzai to copper, and copper oxide can still be seen in this type of pottery in the ME (Middle Eastern) countries. We marvel at the new molding and design techniques we have created in the modern age, but often it turns out that similar techniques already existed in the past. Truly original creation is so hard in this age, which is dominated by imitation. This thought is uppermost in my mind as I try to create.”

The above quote is by Mino potter, Kato Kenji (1933-2008) who while working in the tradition of TORUKO-AO (Turkish Blue) clearly understood the necessity to find his own voice and vocabulary in an idiom that would be easy to imitate what had come before. Kato was well trained during his apprenticeship with two Ningen Kokuho; Tomimoto Kenkichi and Kondo Yuzo; his broad abilities are a reflection of both of his masters. Kato worked within the traditional Mino field producing wonderful Shino wares as well as iron rich glazes, iro-e overglaze enameled works and both transparent and opaque Persian blue glazes. By looking at his body of Toroku-ao work, you can see that he kept his distance from simply copying what had gone before. He constantly strove to add something to an age old tradition, making this work his own.

This paddled henko-tsubo is very typical of Kato Kenji’s opaque Toruko-ao works. It stands about 10” tall and has wonderful brushed decoration under his lush and vellum textured glaze. Despite having the appearance of a traditional raqqa style pot, the form and decoration speak of a pot born out of a foreign ideal but distinctly Japanese in execution. Together with Ningen Kokuho, Kato Takuo, Kato Kenji helped extend the Silk Road all the way to the doorstep of Gifu Prefecture out of the past and into the present day.

MONDAY BLUES

Recently I have been playing with the combination of my version of a toruko-ao glaze over my neriage. At first, there were a few stumbling blocks but those seem to have been solved. This glaze has taken a complete metamorphosis since I originally got the recipe from Colin Pearson back in the mid-90s. I embarked on the task of morphing the glaze into a vellum style Persian blue glaze (toruko-ao) that was very influenced by the work of Kato Kenji

This glaze started out as a semi-opaque copper blue glaze which ran like the dickens and was splotchy and uneven despite a careful application. Over the years it has been altered so much, that the current recipe does not even resemble the original in content or percentages. The current version, TA-Variation-56s, can be used thin or thick without running and now works well over various underglaze slips as well as the cobalt rich black neriage porcelain I use.

Aside from the luminous quality of the glaze, the richness of the blue has a timeless and ancient quality to it. It seemed only fitting that I used it over the black & white neriage pots I have been making which are influenced by suminagashi style paper marbling. The real appeal of these pots though, is the cool and inviting softness of the vellum glaze texture. It has a feel unlike any other glaze texture I know and is truly enjoyable in the hand. It would seem to be the perfect Monday blues……………

(Illustrated are four teabowls and a close-up of a bowl, unloaded from a kiln this morning)