INCOMING

I have been around pottery for quite a while now and in that time have met a number of potters and collectors who have graciously shared pots, information and ideas. Among those interested in pots, I have been extremely fortunate to know a number of dedicated and longtime pottery collectors who have been very open to sharing access to their collections. Our first real contact with a pottery collector was in Cleveland when I had just started making pottery. It was rather interesting being able to handle and examine everything from Momoyama Shino ware, a sancai style Betty Woodman pillow pitcher, a nice collection of Beatrice Wood and Laura Andresen, an extensive collection of American studio pottery including many museum quality Grueby and Rookwood pieces as well as a large array of American, British and Japanese pots by modern studio potters. To this day, I carry on long distance relationships with a number of these collectors.

In the past hand full of years, I have also been able to help some of these collectors downsize, refocus or sell off their collection because of my Trocadero website. Many of the collectors are now retiring and moving to smaller accommodations or even out of country. Some other collectors are refocusing their collections and moving into different collecting avenues, so some pots must go. A friend of mine is just such a collector. Having started collecting only a few years ago, at first, he was collecting pots that appealed to him at the time and were good pots. Recently while collecting, he hit on a particular strategy and focus for his collection and decided that he would part with pots that didn’t fall within these refocused parameters.

Fast forward to last week and this week, with on UPS box already arrived and two on the way, in comes another small collection to help find new homes for. This grouping consists of primarily traditional tea wares, including a work by a Ningen Kokuho and a Prefectural Living Treasure.

The following is a list of pots coming in that I will post on Trocadero over the next week;

Suzuki Goro Yashichida Oribe Chawan (Sold)
Miwa Kyuwa X Hagi Lg. Plate
Yoshiga Taibi Hagi Chawan
Takahara Shoji Bizen Chaire
Kawai Takeichi Tessha Chawan (one of the finest I have ever seen)
Sakai Kobu Shino Chawan
Kamiya Eisuke Yohen Tetsu-yu Chawan
Ishii Takahiro Oribe Summer Chawan

Illustrated is a detail of the inside of the yohen-tetsuyu chawan by Kamiya Eisuke. There are a variety of effects ranging from streaking hare’s fur to radiant iron crystals.

CARBON & SILICA (C&SiO2)

Since it is Friday, I thought I would  post a simple pot. Illustrated is a loosely, for me, thrown porcelain teabowl with large impressed medallions glazed with a good old Foote Minerals spodumene Shino glaze and accented with  bidoro-yu in the impressed areas. Once again the teabowl was in the right place and a whole band circling the top portion of the bowl has carbon trapped accentuating the form and throwing rhythm. I don’t think I could have planned the piece any better than what the kiln did on its own.  Isn’t it amazing what simple carbon, silica and 2380 degree can do?

YASHICHIDA-ORIBE

One of the real intresting aspects of Oribe is the nearly infinite variety of green that is manifest through varying glazes used over the centuries. When you add the various styles of Oribe, the tradition is just full of potential and possibilities for the modern potter. Of the wide array of styles, there is one in particular that sprung on the scene in the Momoyama period and almost as quickly disappeared, Yasachida-Oribe. Yashichida-Oribe is awhimsical and playful style of Oribe that was popular during the renaissance of the late Momoyama to early Edo period, spontaneous and casual lay dormant until the style of decoration was revived by modern master potter; Suzuki Goro. This technique epitomizes the playfulness in Japanese art and highlights the creative genius of Suzuki and is used as an overall design that encompasses the pot or is focus in “panel” style decoration and surrounded by large areas of Kuro-Oribe or Ao-Oribe. Though Suzuki is a master of everything he tries and is considered a consummate master of Ki-Seto and Seto-Guro, it is his playful, Momoyama infused works in Yasachida-Oribe style that I believe he excels and propels the possibilities of a tradition into the 21st century.

Illustrated is a bold Yashichida-Oribe chawan by Suzuki Goro. This chawan is large with an exillerating foot and panel  “free-style” decoration with a variety of marks in rich iron, greens and corals on a creamy ground under a clear ash glaze and surrounded by a feldspathic glaze over a rich charcoal black background. The beauty of this work is the timeless nature it exudes while confidently serving as a bridge between the old and the very new.

More pictures of this chawan can be seen on my website at;
http://www.trocadero.com/stores/albedo3studio/items/1092571/item1092571store.html

EVOLUTION

In these days of e-books, kindles and closing book stores, a real book in the hand is still a wonderful thing, and MICHAEL SIMON: EVOLUTION is a wonderful book. With a forward by Warren MacKenzie and commentary regarding the pottery by Michael, this is an insightful and well illustrated narrative about a potter’s life in pots and the decisions made along a lifetime. From his thrown and altered “Persian boxes” to his utilitarian pitchers, bowls, plates and vases, the glimpse into the evolution of a potter is related.

One of Michael Simon’s comments about Warren MacKenzie is vivid and I think many potters can relate to; “I still hear him [Warren] in my brain, and I still think about him whenever I have to make a decision. He is my touchstone, he is the figure that I think through. He was very important to me. I didn’t know it at the time; really I wasn’t conscious at the time of Warren’s value.” It is this personal observation and thought that most potters and craftsman can understand but Simon’s articulation is simple and to the point. The commentary and observations made by him reflect his pursuit of the personal and this alone makes this a book well worth owning. I recommend this book without any reservations for potters, collectors and those interested in the evolution of a personal process.

Illustrated along with the book, MICHAEL SIMON: EVOLUTION; is a small salt fired Persian box form by Simon. It was thrown and altered in such a formulaic method that only he could have achieved. It was decorated and the kiln did the rest. On the lid of the pot are three spots where wads were placed around the decorated “spot” which adds to the surface and gives one a perspective of how the pot was fired and how it stood as a pedestal for another, smaller pot. In my mind, this is a metaphor, as Simon’s pots will stand as a pedestal for generations to come.

“The merit of originality is not novelty, it is sincerity.” Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881)

NOT ANOTHER MARX BROTHER

As long as I have been interested in Japanese art, I have loved traditional Japanese painting and calligraphy. When you pair those with the imagery of pottery, well, I am always interested. This modern shikishi (poem card) is by Shimizu Kosho (1911-1999), a Buddhist priest who created art in a variety of mediums, including paintings and actual pottery. This painting depicts a kintsugi style chawan by Honami Koetsu entitled, SEPPO (Snow Covered Hill) that has been lovingly repaired with gold lacquer brings the bowl to a state of wholeness again. Through the restorers’ art, the chawan must now be an entirely different vision that it was prior to its present state.  In the west, damaged pieces are many times thrown out, while in Japan, in particular, every care to preserve and restore, even ordinary objects, shows the reverence and respect afforded the hand made.

Though I have never seen the Seppo chawan in person, I can not even imagine it in any other vision beyond its reassembled presence. Its beautiful pinkish-brown glaze with areas of drifting grey-white punctuated by the dramatic gold lacquer assembly lines makes for a visual narrative distinct among other Raku masterpieces. It may sound somewhat heretical, but from my perspective, the state it now is in, makes for a much richer and even more interesting piece. The story it could tell regarding its survival and transformation into a broken beauty, are a testament that all the kings horses and all the kings man, can at least put pottery together again.

“It is better to have loft and lost than to never have loft at all.” Groucho Marx

                                            Seppo by Hon'ami Koetsu

SHARDS

Because of the way I glaze and the glazes I use, running glazes are the norm for a typical firing. On the odd occasion, I dip a bit too deep or too thick and well, the consequences are enivitable; the glaze runs off the pot. Some of these pots are easily salvageable with a small grind here or there, but there are those others that no amount of grinding, nor all the king’s men, will save those pots. As a female student at CSU was fond of saying; “its Hammer time”. I use clay boxes to collect up the shards of the broken pots and really try to limit breaking as few a pot as possible. Some of the real runners go to friends or family or go along with purchased pots. The ones I break, well honestly, they just need to be broken.

Having had the opportunity to work in Japan and travel about there as well, I can tell you, there are shard piles that rival anything imaginable. At the studio of Kohyama Yasuhisa, there was a shard pile of a different type; back in 1992 (?) a huge mudslide occurred in the midst of his firing his anagama. The anagama and all of its contents were instantly turned into rubble and shards. Poking around the area, there is still evidence of shards littering the area all now overseen by a massive retaining wall behind his property to avoid a repeat. At the home of Tsujimura Shiro, along side the large numbers of finished pots, strewn around his property are large mounds of shards from decades of work. Shigaraki, Iga, Shino, Seto-guro, Kohiki and other styles proliferate these mounds. I just kept thinking, with enough time, energy, patience and glue, what pots could be rebuilt.

Over the years, besides the actual places I have seen in the US and abroad, you hear stories and see pictures of the practices of quality control at work in the shape of small, medium and large shard piles. The stories of the seihakuji and yuteki potters destroying large numbers of pots to maintain an exacting standard are common and retold countless times. I actually have seen photos of Tsukigata Nahiko with a hammer breaking pots I would love to own, with small mounds of shards at his feet. The practice of breaking pots is as old as the practice of making pots. Look around and you will see pot shards as far back as the beginning of man baking clay. Though no one enjoys breaking his/her’s own pots, this is just another (cruel) necessity of pottery making. Not every pot is going to be a winner, not ever pot will survive the fire and surely not every pot will meet up to the standard of the potter themselves.

Illustrated is a group of “failed” Jian ware oilspot pottery shards from Sung Dynasty (960-1279) China though possibly as late as the mid-1400’s and excavated in the 1920’s. These pots were broken intentially as they did not meet a particular standard, they were over fired, under fired, fused together or had excessive debris attached to the glaze surfaces.

(Illustration used with the permission of a private pottery scholar)

DAMAGED GOODS

I was recently offered a rather wonderful piece of pottery and at a fraction of its worth. Sounds too good to be true, I was informed by the owner, that there was an insignificant kamakizu (kiln flaw) and a small piece had been broken off the handbuilt form from the firing. Pictures sent and pictures received, but what I was looking at was not a kamakizu or some damage from how the piece was made or fired, rather in the colloquial, it was a big chip. I spent some time examining the pictures at actual size and just came to terms with the fact that the damage was beyond what I could live with.


As a collector and certainly as a potter, I want my pots to be perfect, no chips, cracks, sharp bits or any other cosmetic or scructural flaws, nor would these be anything I would sell without full and detailed disclosure. I can not say all that I have collected is perfect either, though in all of our years of collecting, we have only ever bought one damaged piece intentially. That was a wonderful Persian bottle where the neck had been cleanly broken off and repaired so well as to be “nearly” invisible. The other damaged goods that we have owned, presently or past tense, arrived damaged and were either concealed by the original seller or broken in transit. My theory is rather simple and certainly not on the level of Schrodinger’s cat, but I fixate on the negative when looking at pots. To me, that Cindy Crawford mole isn’t an attribute, but a deficit, that is just how I am built. I know, I am not the half-full glass guy. Though the inevitable is that a certain pot will come along and despite some “slight” damage or a repair, it will be simply irresitable.

As I have written previously, I certainly understand and appreciate the “scarred beauty” of wood fired pots, but when it comes to other pottery, I admit, I have little tolerance. The damage that I see, impacts the intent and presence of the potter and pot. That being said, what would a good Ki-Seto vase by Arakawa Toyozo be without cracks that originated in the process and firing? Why I see those as different, I am really not sure, but when “someone” knocks off a lug of your favorite vase, that surely is something very different and having nothing to do with the original intent of potter or pot!

F72111

I fired the kiln yesterday, the hottest day of the year, so far. Just would figure that would be the intersection between plans made and nature. It was brutal firing the kiln and the cat was even giving me these looks like; “what the h*ll were you thinking”. In my mind, I wanted the kiln fired to get some orders unloaded and packed and shipped out right away. Good customer service goes a long way and it is always a relief to have some things finalized. The other reason I was so stubborn was I wanted to see a couple pots in particular and a group of pots that were testing a new glaze.

As may be apparent for anyone on the outside looking in, I have a hard time leaving any one glaze alone. I seem to have a compulsion to tamper with, tweak, tear and re-assemble a glaze to see what I can get it to do. Sometimes this works and, well, sometimes it doesn’t. The positive results don’t necessarily make for a good glaze, the ones that don’t work, sometimes are dull, uninteresting or fail catastrophically. That is probably what makes this chemical tinkering fun and keeps me on my toes when it comes to glazing.

This firing had a half dozen pieces with a radically altered iron glaze that I have been working with. At first, a few of the tweaks were entirely random, then after a few firings I decided it was time to “engineer” an iron yellow glaze. It didn’t work over the temmoku as it used some of the iron and copper from the glaze and just came out like the iron glaze I was using. After thinking about it, I decided to try it over the clear glaze that I use. The first pod test was rather promising. In for a penny, in for a pound, I threw a group of pots this last cycle destined for the new Iron Yellow tests, glazed them up and waited for the results. The results are varied and show some promise and are directly related to the glaze thickness. Overall, it has given me some things to think about and certainly some ideas for the next firing.

Illustrated is a paddled stoneware water jar with clear and iron yellow glaze applied rather thin.The second pot illustrated shows two views of a stoneware bottle with hakeme slips under a clear glaze and the iron yellow glaze a bit thicker. It is immediately apparent, this is a really runny glaze, so glaze breaks will have to be planned into the pots I intend to use it on and secondly, it still maintains that Karatsu influence and style that I am currently playing with.



IN REMEMBRANCE

It was on this day in 2000 that the pottery world lost a giant way to early when Furutani Michio (1946-2000) passed away. Considered to be one of the foremost important anagama potter, he and Kohyama Yasuhisa are credited with resurrecting the medieval style of firing with the building of the first anagama in Shigaraki Valley in several hundred years. Furutani’s mastery of firing and his fluent vocabulary in both Shigaraki and Iga was beyond compare. His chawan, mizusashi, tsubo and evocative henko slab bottles elevated this work for his peers and those to follow, to use as a golden standard.


My wife and I were fortunate to have known Furutani-san. After our first trip to Japan when we meet him, we would later plan our treks to Shigaraki valley to coincide with him opening his kiln from his fall firings. It was a special time looking through all of the recently fired pots, many still all jumbled up and stuck together with wadding all laid out on tarps and in his storage shed. Getting to see the huge smile brighten up on his face as he would point to this pot and that was magical. With his help, we would always walk away with a pot or two, usually accompanied by a small gift. His smile, knowledge and talent are sorely missed. As I think about Shigaraki and Iga pots, I can not help but be somewhat melancholy to think that no more Furutani Michio pots will be made, but this is tempered by the fact that he helped reinvigorate the tradition and set a high bar for all wood fired potters around the world, including his son and notable potter, Furutani Kazuya.

Illustrated is a photo of a lone tsubo in the corner of his gallery space that I took on my last visit to Furutani Michio’s studio. It was a magnificent piece, though solemn and solitary. In its own way, it is a fertile and promising statement about modern Shigaraki-yaki and a pot I will always remember as the soul of a great potter.

A LONG TIME COMING

A normal cycle for making pottery, a bisque and a glaze fire usually runs about 3 weeks or so. When I started the current cycle, I thought I would make a few handbuilt pieces, throws some jars, vases, bowls and teabowls and that would make for a quick turn around. As you know, the “best-laid plans” often times don’t work out the way you expected. From the beginning the constant rain, humidity and heat made the drying very slow, so it gave me more time to throw just another pot or two for a small order here and there all prolonging the drying that much more.

I finally drew a line in the sand and decided I had to stop throwing yet more pots. I set about making up small batches of 4 different glazes to top off my glaze buckets. Then a small order had to be packed up, and another and a third and forth and lastly a bigger order as well as a package to a friend and some moments spared to write a bit here and there as well. Now more time has gotten away from me, time really does fly. Add to the misc. stuff around the studio and home, a routine dental appointment, several days down for July 4th and then several days in line waiting for the new Harry Potter movie, oh wait, that wasn’t me, I had better things to do, and another week is gone by. I finally got back to the pots and sanded and prepped them for the bisque which will probably be off by the time this is posted. Tuesday and Wedsday will be those days I truly love, glazing. Unloading the bisque, cleaning, prepping, waxing, dipping, dunking, drying, cleaning and load the glaze kiln, two more days added to the total. Hopefully, baring any additional interruptions or unforeseen occurrences and I will fire the glaze kiln on Thursday bringing to a close one of the longest cycles in recent memory. I am not sure if it is just a summer pace or life corrupting plans made prior, but either way, I will be very happy to complete this firing and move on to another cycle which, no doubt, will probably take just as long……………….

“Time is the wisest of all counselors.” Plutarch