THE RIGHT SIZED CUP

I made a few sets of tokkuri and guinomi and after making them realized that the cups were all rather small in comparison to the tokkuri. taking my cue from nearly every ZATOICHI episode and a myriad of other chambara flicks, I decided to make a couple of sets with a bottle and a larger cup, to some I suspect, the right sized cup. Illustrated is a stoneware set of tokkuri/guinomi with hakeme slip under my saffron and a clear glaze. The bottle will fill the cup exactly two times and when you are imbibing five ounces of alcohol at a time, two may be just enough.

RISK = REWARD

Up for Monday is a rich and lustrous hiki-dashi-guro tokkuri by Gifu-ken Important Prefectural Cultural Property (2003) and Mino specialist, Ando Hidetake (b.1938). This tokkuri has a pleasant and inviting form with slightly diagonal ribs dividing the piece and making the pot seem a bit bigger than it is. The deep black glaze has a wonderful landscape with a profuse amount of curdling to the surface which helps give the piece a rather timeless appearance. The trick to this glaze is that it must be snatched out of the red hot kiln at precisely the right moment, at the height of the glaze's maturity to create such a perfect black pot. Many a piece shatter due to the extreme shock of going from red-hot temperatures down to the ambient temperature outside of the kiln, it is a risky technique. Though a high risk/reward maneuver, a positive outcome is  bolstered using the right clay and glaze and having decades of experience with the process.

Ando Hidetake is truly a master of many Mino traditions which he learned under the tutelage of ceramic giant, Kato Tokuro. Ando creates exceptional works in Oribe, Shino, Ko-Seto, Ki-Seto and hiki-dashi-guro style Seto-Guro. It is nearly impossible to discuss Mino-yaki without discussing the works of Ando in the same sentence as Suzuki Osamu and Hayashi Shotaro. Though his pottery has a more restrained and understated elegance to that of many of his contemporaries, he has obviously traveled along the route which best fits his style and once you have seen his pottery, the unique and personal qualities of his work are readily identifiable.

"I cannot deny making ceramics is like entering a labyrinth. From selecting the clay to finding it is a simple line into which I must find a way of weaving myself." Ando Hidetake

HAPPY NEW YEAR

Happy New Year to everyone in every time zone and country. I hope the coming year is a joyous and prosperous year across the board and remember to make easy to fulfill New Year's resolutions and if you are going to drink, drink responsibly. Kampai, akemashite omedetou!

Illustrated is a very nice Iga tokkuri by Kojima Kenji accompanied by two seiji guinomi, the smaller guinomi by Wakao Kei (b.1967) and the larger is by Uraguchi Masayuki (b. 1964).

GUINOMI

Though I like guinomi, I have never really gone out of my way to collect them. I realize there are a lot of people who collect shuki (sake articles) or guinomi exclusively looking at drinking sake in a nearly ritualistic manner just like chanoyu. My wife and I have instead, tended to collect chadogu, preferring the larger objects that hold greater volume and visual presence.

That being said, recently I was looking around on the shelves and nooks and crannies of storage areas and had to conclude, we do collect guinomi, there are dozens of them. Over the years, popping into antique stores, flea markets, treks to Japan and now with the electronic age firmly planted, internet auction sites, we have put together a serendipitous collection of guinomi.

Some are occasionally used, others out and about as gem like accents, but all possess the qualities of chawan that we are so fond of. Despite their size, a potter has to work just as hard to create a good form, interior, foot and surface as he would on a larger teabowl and counter intuitively, mistakes on a guinomi seem far more exaggerated than on their larger kin.

We have been able to find pieces from a wide array of styles and artists, from Bizen to Shigaraki, Hagi, Karatsu, Mashiko and many more. In truth they certainly store easily enough and their use, can be down right intoxicating