KEEPING COOL

Made out of locally dug Echizen clay and wood fired, this guinomi exhibits a gem like quality that is of course further enhanced by the rich bidoro drop on the front (?) of this piece. Born into a rather well known pottery family, Yamada Hiroshi is the son of Yamada Kazu and grew up in and around clay, a family where clay permeates the pores and makes its way into the fertile Echizen pottery tradition of the region. This guinomi belongs to a fellow collector in Europe who has an eye for tokkuri and guinomi and this particular piece sits perfectly among the rest of his collection. Like with many of the guinomi that I gravitate toward, this Yamada Hiroshi piece has that "mini-chawan" appearance with a simple yet fluid form, excellent surface and interior and is perched perhaps a bit precariously on a wonderful foot that creates lift to the overall ambiance. I thought the light and casual nature of this Echizen guinomi was perfect as spring moves toward the heat of summer where the contents and quiet aesthetics can contribute to keeping one cool despite its origins in such intense heat.

DRAW TWICE, SLIP ONCE

This illustration shows how I end up making or rather designing a number of the more "complex" slip trailed designs that I use over black slip. Since the technique is essentially a one attempt kind of process I have felt that it is good to get a good idea of the design and then lay it out in thin ink over the black slip before letting the white slip loose on the canvas. This particular design is a rather old one dating back to Cleveland where I was asked to make two large 20"+ platters that would hang for a real estate office. As you can see this plate is covered in a variety of layers of houses that were meant to depict Cleveland Heights and University Heights at the time, I wonder where they are now? I guess it just doesn't hurt to have a plan before you just go ahead and ruin a 20" plate, remember to draw twice and slip once.

SIMPLICITÉ

In the field of pottery, there are lots of potters who specialize in a particular tradition or style, others in a single glaze or a few more and then there are potters who have focused their attention on the glaze materials of which glazes made out of various wood ash is one possibility. One such potter is Kimura Morinobu, the youngest of the three Kimura brothers, Morikazu, Moriyasu and Morinobu who lives and works on the outskirts of Kyoto and collects and burns a wide array of woods (and bushes) to create one of the principle ingredients for his glazes. By burning the materials himself, Morinobu is able to control the unadulterated properties of the ash and work to formulas developed over the coarse of a lifetime of pottery and glaze making. In the end his work is made up of ash and clay and little else except perhaps a bit of water and a fair amount of fire.     

Illustrated is one such piece where the surface originated from locally sourced and prepared wood ash in the form of a thick, luxurious seihakuji glaze coving a simple, functional koro balanced on a stable tripod base. The lid has three simple cut outs in the form of teardrops while the body of the koro is decorated with slight distortions of the surface creating three abstracted plump, ripe persimmons and where the surface is depressed the glaze has filled in creating a rather pleasant visual texture.    

Over the years I have seen quite a few pots by Kimura Morinobu including in both Osaka and Kyoto and what has always appealed to me about his work is the simplicity and practicality of the pieces. Though rather attractive and noble in bearing, his pottery has a inviting appeal where the intended purpose of the piece, the appearance and the attention to use go hand in hand, In turn  this makes them at home with the aesthetic and function that most craft are admired for and sought after in Kyoto be they a simple koro or an article for chanoyu and just about everything else in between.

DNA

Though perhaps best known for his rare and unique yuteki-temmoku chawan, Hayashi Kyousuke is fairly versatile for a specialist. Beyond the yuteki-temmoku, Hayashi makes wonderful work in a modern take on Kuro-Oribe as well as Ki-Seto pottery, a technique learned from his master, Kato Kozo by way of Arakawa Toyozo. The illustrated Ki-seto chawan is about as traditional a chawan in form and surface as they come though the lattice of copper applied to the chawan and now blushing through the surface is very modern and purely Hayashi Kyousuke in creation. This chawan has a welcoming atmosphere, comforting and elegant in its simplicity while the texture of the glaze surface is soft and velvety adding to the calm and contemplative encounter. The chawan is finished off with a kodai that is highly complimentary to the bowl form with just a hint more texture where the crispness of the cut foot is tempered by the glaze itself. Though classic and simple, this Ki-Seto chawan shows not only restraint and a thoughtful use of materials but in its DNA are centuries of the past fused permentantly within a bowl that is perfect for tea in the 21st century.

LOOK MA, I'M ON TV

A while back I posted up a picture of one of my shallow bowls being used as a prop from a national TV show which I have to admit was kind of fun. A couple of weeks ago we were flipping around the channels to finds our local news and immediately recognized another piece of pottery that I had made some while back hanging in the foreground of the interview. In this case the show is a political show on Spectrum News in which State Assemblyperson Pam Hunter (@pamelahunter128) was being interviewed and my tebori, hand carved wall bowl was over her right shoulder on the wall. Considering Assemblyperson Hunter's district is around Syracuse, NY, I am assuming the bowl was purchased at Eureka Gallery before it closed or at Mixed Methods somewhat more recently. I realize this is no big deal really but it was kind of nice to see the piece prominently displayed in her work or home office. Now if only I can figure out how to sneak a pot in to the living quarters of the International Space Station, I am pretty sure I would get some bragging rights with that accomplishment.

THAT IS A BOWL

Large, bold Aka-Shino chawan by Yamada Kazu and for full disclosure the photo is just a bit over-exposed and I do not have access to it to rephotograph the piece but despite that fact it is still quite easy to say, now that is a bowl. I think what is immediately apparent is the fiery appeal of the chawan with a wonderful multi-toned surface, nice texture, great form and lip and the seductive taper from the base to the lip. As if these attributes weren't enough the dramatic punctuations from the fingermarks created while dipping the bowl in glaze also act as the starting point for the glaze runs, contrary to gravity up the chawan while the bowl was pulled from the bucket upside down. The wonderful surface creates a practiced landscape that like a good painting tells the story of at least part of the creation of this chawan while leaving the remainder up to the viewers fertile imagination. Despite the character and characteristics of the bowl, at its core this is a simple chawan that was constructed of complex details that are a very clear indication that the potter who made this bowl has made many more of this form and style. For Yamada to arrive at this point his experience like some organic clock works from piece to piece and firing to firing creating a long and sometimes winding pathway of pots along the way.

TURNAROUND

I am not exactly sure where I first saw this type of closed pedestal dish form though I do know it was some Italian majolica and possibly at the Gardiner Museum (in Toronto) though I am not sure. After seeing this piece in the early 1990s I started making these forms in majolica and also in stoneware using temmoku and tessha glazes and in porcelain using a Choy and a Kawai celadon and though not the epitome of storage practicality, they are fun to make and to use.  

The piece illustrated is a prototype for a customer who wants eight of these forms for a dinner party in which they will serve either tempura, shrimp cocktails or sushi as the menu is not set in stone quite yet. The piece was thrown yesterday and tooled and assembled this morning as the initial prototype being about 8" x 4" at the moment, the top of the form is heavily paddled for a nice texture and the sides are impressed with series of four small squares around the piece and in keeping with the overall idea the piece is finished in a pedestal style foot with a single pierced hole to allow air to escape during the bisque and glaze firing.   

The current thought is that these pieces will be glazed in Oribe with the top having a good coating of iron sprayed over to create a mostly black surface but allowing the texture to still be quite visible. I used the lemons to quickly illustrate the size and scale of the piece which can be tweaked to meet the needs of the customer as well as to give a clearer idea of how much this space can hold. All in all this was a rather quick turnaround for a prototype and hopefully if all goes well I can get the platform pieces made, assembled, dried, bisque and glazed in time for their inaugural use.

 

SMALL BEGINNINGS

I am acutely aware of the saying uttered in LAWRENCE OF ARABIA and by the 'artificial person" David in PROMETHEUS, "Big things have small beginnings" and for me it was a seed planted during a conversation with Warren MacKenzie many years ago. During some free time, I decided to approach Warren and was asking him about some specific historical Japanese pots and one in particular was a faceted, small Oribe koro which he was acquainted with from the book, SHINO AND ORIBE CERAMICS. The conversation turned to his thoughts and opinion of this green glaze in some relation to his use of the green he was using at the time that was fired in the cooler parts of the kiln. We discussed its use a bit and he thought that it was best used on faceted surfaces to bring out the most of both clay and glaze. I was very pleased at the time to be able to discuss both Oribe and Shino glazes because both have fascinated me my entire adult life. What I did not really know at the time that with Warren's input, my love of Japanese pottery and a springboard green glaze what profound impact  this would have over the years, as I said, a seed was certainly planted. 

I began working with Warren's green glaze first at Cleveland State and through the years I have constantly dabbled with various incarnations moving further from the original glaze and away from the constant need to find more lepidolite. Over the last few years much of my work not related to gallery orders and terra cotta pottery seems to always circle back to Oribe style glazes where I have done hundreds of tests and have so many variations that I sometimes lose track of what I have tried and what has and has not worked, thank goodness for  glaze notebooks. My current testing seems to revolve around what I am calling Kuro-Oribe and it has added a different dimension to what I have actually made before, the big question is why did it take so long?     

Illustrated is a picture of a picture from the book  SHINO AND ORIBE CERAMICS that I mentioned previously. As you can see and as the description relates, this pot was quickly thrown on a wheel and then rather spontaneously faceted to give a rather casual impression while creating some visual drama and more than enough tension. The pot was then dipped partially into the Oribe glaze and fired where the glaze ran and created a beautiful demarcation point between the glazed and unglazed surface showing off the clay and crispness of the facets along with some wonderful deep, dark green drips frozen in movement around the sides as well as hanging of the lip, suspended just before falling in to the abyss of the unglazed interior.  This simple, subtle pot has a certain depth, a mysterious (yugen) quality to it that I suspect appeals to most people that see it; a simple pot, a simple conversation and a long road to travel.

ROOTED IN THE PAST

My first real exposure to the works of Shigaraki potter Kengo Saeki was through an add in a Japanese magazine and then later at a gallery that had three of his recently fired pieces all created to resemble Edo period locks used on doors and tansu. I found the design and execution of these pieces to be quite wonderful and when you added in the exceptional firing these pots are just modern Shigaraki magic. Since that time I have come in contact with a number of his more traditional and classic thrown pottery ranging from very usable guinomi and tokkuri to vases and an array of chadogu for tea ceremony.   

Illustrated is a much more traditional Shigaraki pot by Kengo Saeki, a rather nice mizusashi that borrows from the old to add a bit to the present. The form, lid and knob of this pot are rather simple and it is perhaps because of that simplicity that there is an inviting and calming atmosphere to the pot that is incised around the shoulder with the quintessential Shigaraki fence design used for centuries.    

Though rooted in the past this mizusashi has been fired in a way that embracing more modern firing techniques and goals from the botamochi style resist areas to the build up of layered ash that creates a near rainbow of coloration from hi-iro flashes to greys, greens, lavenders, light blues to even light pinks as well as bands of scorched deep browns to help paint this canvas in a semi-abstract landscape. I think it is safe to say that under the tutelage of his master, Sawa Kiyotsugu that Kengo Saeki has been well founded in the traditions of Shigaraki pottery making and firing along with the vision to see beyond the old and create pottery that speaks of all the modern influences available and I suspect that is exactly what a living tradition is all about.

APPLY WHEN WET

I threw three vases like the one in the picture this morning along with some other pieces and then waited a bit and attached lug handles while the pot was still way soft. I like to attach the handles like this while the clay is soft as it leaves a slight impression in the body of the vase where the lugs were applied. I think working this way softens the transitions sometimes and works on some pots with some surfaces but not all in my opinion. Once a bit drier I will work on the lugs to add marks from top to bottom and then tool the foot somewhat to better define the form. Currently the pot is a bit over 13" or so but will shrink to a reasonable size and since I threw three, I will have three attempts at glazing them though one will be slip decorated under Oribe as an order and the other two will likely be temmoku and ash for one and either Kuro-Oribe or saffron for the other. By attaching the lugs at this point when I do go to trim them I can go from one to another rather quickly and get all of the trimming down before lunch so that I can get to other projects in the afternoon.