IMPASTO FUJI

Like most people who live with hand made things, over the years we have traded for or collected a number of prints and paintings from both American and Japanese artists. Our Japanese print taste runs along the lines of Mori Yoshitoshi, Oda Mayumi, Clifton Karhu and the obligatory Saito Kiyoshi, more modern artists and though we have a few Nihonga, Rimpa and Zenga kakejiku scrolls and water colors it wasn't until my first introduction to the paintings of Tsukigata Nahiko that I ever considered owning an oil painting. I saw my first Tsukigata painting in 1991 or 1992 while in Japan, it was a really large painting of a Notre Dame in Paris that filled the wall of a reception room in a famous hotel in Osaka. I was in awe of the scale, grandeur and power of the painting but it was the vibrant surface which seemed alive and the thick texture that had me sold. Now don't get me wrong, having seen great paintings of a variety of museums, I would take a Monet, Homer or Church any day but like his ceramics, I find the painting of Tsukigata engaging with a power and manner that speaks to me on almost every level.

Illustrated is a painting of Fuji-yama by Tsukigata Nahiko that was painted in the late 80s or early 90s. I love the way he has captured the snow capped Fuji with the whole image being created in a rather fluid and dynamic impasto style bringing the piece into three dimensions and almost a tactile as his pottery.

TEAPOTS

I have always been interested in teapots, more as a challenge of construction and form, than the actual use of the pot for tea. Orchestrating the body of the pot, a "dripless" spout, lid and handle pose a variety of challenges that make a teapot enjoyable to pursue. I first stating making teapots back in the early 90's and was able to sell nearly everyone I made locally and through a number of teapot shows and the studio sales. As I moved away from Cleveland, my teapot output began to fall as it became a bit harder to sell teapots as it is a specific niche among pottery collectors. I went from making a dozen teapots a month, to maybe two a month at present. Teapots are like jugs/pitchers, they just don't seem to be as sought after as a number of other pots I make.

Illustrated is a stoneware teapot. The construction of the pot centers around the paddled thrown body and aligning the spout, lid knob and handle and then finishing the paddled sides with a rib to sharpen the lines around the sides. Once bisqued, I will most likely glaze the pot in temmoku and the sides in combed iron red. I really enjoy making teapots, they are the epitome of engineering and physics for any potter and if you can figure them out, you may well be able to figure any pot out.

"If one is master of one thing and understands one thing well, one has at the same time, insight into and understanding of many things."      Vincent Van Gogh  (1853-1890)