THE MARK OF THE POTTER

I have always liked the way Japanese potters glaze. They grab hold of a pot and dip it in the glaze using their fingers as a form of resist. Once fired, the fingerprints are forever apparent on the pot. To me, the Japanese are highly effective at this technique and plan it into the overall design and decoration of the pot. It is a casual and simple means of adding additional gesture to a piece. In this case, this truly is the mark of the potter.

Over the years I have seen a number of potters use this technique very well. Warren MacKenzie comes to mind. In my glazing, I occasionally use my fingers and even hands as a resist when using two glazes. It is a way of noting the process and that I was there.


Of all the people that do this, Arakawa Toyozo is among my favorite. I first saw his work back in 1982 and have studied his pottery at every opportunity. Arakawa was a Ningen Kokuho and his effortless, spontaneous and casual manner for decorating and glazing is the pinnacle of the art. His simple marks and fingerprints articulate his pots and create beauty out of timeless and classical simplicity.

(Photograph of an Arakawa Toyozo mizusashi with sparse plum blossom design and his fingerprints around the foot. Used with permission from a private collection)

SLIP TRAILING

I first tried my hand at slipware back in 1991. I had always loved the works of the early American redware potters and I especially loved the work of Michael Cardew, so I thought, why not give stoneware a break.

I started testing first earthenware and terra cotta clay bodies and finally found one that suited me. The next step was testing slips to meet up with the terra cotta I was making up. I got a good fit almost right away and set about making some redware style pieces with amber glazes. Though it was working, I was just not that enthused with the look.

What I ended up deciding on was a blending of Cardew and Juan Miro. I opted to use a background of black slip over the terra cotta and then used white sliptrail designs under a nearly crystal clear glaze. Though I didn’t know it,that was the look I was going for. The new slipware became my first body of work the galleries accepted (I had only been making pots for about 18 months) and has continued to be 30% of my sales up until the present day.

I have developed a large group of designs based on both traditional slipware and my own newer style designs. I am forever using the ubiquitous spiral as well as my “landscape men” and a cast of thousands. The real love of slip trailing is that you have one shot, you can’t hesitate or it shows. The designs are instantaneous and in some distant way related to the immediacy of Zen painting. Besides, how can you go wrong with black and white?

LIGHT

"Light is the first of painters. There is no object so foul that intense light will not make it beautiful." Ralph Waldo Emerson

(A carved porcelain covered box by Japanese potter Kano Mitsuo)

WOOD FIRED

When I first started making pots, my intentions were clear, I wanted to wood fire. For nearly a decade prior to making pots, I collected pots. I was fascinated by the surfaces of Bizen, Shigaraki and Iga pots in particular. As I began to make pots, I had those surfaces in mind and threw pots to best take advantage of wood firing.

My first problem was I needed to learn to throw, that aside, I also needed access to a wood kiln. As I showed some rudimentary skills, Bill Klock took pity on me and invited me to wood fire at his conventional western wood kiln. Despite the surfaces not looking like drippy Iga, I was hooked. Wood firing was for me.

The whole process of preparing pots to be wood fired, setting up wood for firing and the whole firing process were just magical and intense. I was built for this style of work. I was fortunate to wood fire at a number of places including with Kirk Mangus and with Kohyama Yasuhisa in Asanomiya (Shigaraki), Japan.

Though it has been a number of years since I have wood fired, I would drop everything to go and be part of a wood firing. It is one of those things, you either love the fire or you don’t. I think it is in my blood and I am always ready.

POTTER'S MARK

Having made pottery for about 20 years, I have gone through several different pottery marks. My first exposure to pottery marks was from years of studying and collecting Japanese pottery. Working with Bill Klock exposed me to his use of a personal stamp based on the Leach tradition. I made my first stamp while my first pots were still wet.

The mark I have used the longest is the small seal mark of a small sickle moon that represents the Albedo concept. I started using that mark back in the mid-90’s long before there was an Albedo Studio. Along the way, I have used various incarnations of the CB mark and the current mark is based on my life prior to making pots. Back when I was in college, I ran a coin store, as I have always been interested in US type coins and ancient coins. The coin shop gave me a great opportunity to handle and examine all kinds of coins as well as buying/selling gold and silver scrap.

My current mark, used since about 2002, is meant to look like a hard-stuck ancient coin with the letter type based on ancient Greek coinage. It seemed a fitting way to consolidate my life pre-pottery and post pottery. There are still several variations of the pottery stamp, but it is the stamp I use on most pieces of enough size to stamp with a coin size stamp. I used the smaller Albedo stamp on smaller pieces including some teabowls, teacups, sake bottles and the like.

HI-IRO

One of the most incredible features of yakishime (refering to the the natural and unglazed pottery of Shigaraki, Iga, Bizen, Echizen, Tamba and Tokoname as well as others) is when the surface appears caught in a moment of time. The ash or flame makes for a keshiki landscape of frozen motion. The drip of ash suspended in time or the hi-iro (fire color) showing the shadows of other pots and pads, these make these potteries visually alive.

When I think of hi-iro, my mind often wanders to the pot illustrated, a large tsubo by a member of one of the large Tamba families, Ichino Etsuo (市野 悦夫). It is thrown from a fine grained clay and the form is precise and noble and the hi-iro decoration shows the pathway of the flames as they licked this pot during the firing. It resembles the wispy pathways of a planetary storm of some alien world. The hi-iro is caused by volatizing fumes within the flame and they lay on accidental, incidental decoration of where the velocity of the fire caresses the pot. Though somewhat serendipitous, the potter must know his clay and kiln and how to fire the kiln for the pot to come out so lively. The beauty of yakishime pottery is the evidence of the flame that says something different to every pot and every viewer, a symphony in flame, burned onto the pot.

(Ichino Etsuo Tamba tsubo used with permission from a private collection)

TEXTURE

A friend recently asked me about my use of texture on my pots. The paddled and impressed texture in particular, but also the use of hakeme and thick kushime combed slip as well. At first I was unsure what they wanted me to say and wasn’t honestly sure how to respond.

After thinking about it for a moment, the answer was very obvious to me and in fact, right in the palm of my hand. I love texture, the tactile interaction between pot and person, I love the exceptionally tactile sense of a pot. This coupled with the historical antecedents where texture was some of pottery’s earliest “artistic” expression reinforced my use of texture

In the making, there is a variety of different textures you experience from wedging to throwing to handling a leatherhard pot. A bisque pot is unlike no other texture I can explain. The use of texture to decorate and articulate a form seems only natural since it is the pot in hand that interests me as much as the visual of the object.

The use of a variety of textures, as decoration, makes the tactile experience richer and the sensory input from various 3-dimensional surfaces allows for a nearly infinite interaction between each pot and it’s user.

VELLUM NERIAGE

I have been experimenting with colored glazes over neriage for a while. I have used clear, amber, medieval green, Oribe and my Ao glaze to date.

Recently I decided to use my Persian vellum glaze over the neriage. The first tests were a bit disappointing as the black porcelain in the neriage actually “burnt” the soft vellum blue glaze. The results looked excessively dry and pebbly where the black pattern was. With a few adjustments, I was able to get the vellum blue glaze to work quite well over the neriage clay.

This yunomi was in the first batch of tests and the glaze responded well to the clay and vice versa. I really like trying new stuff from existing clays and glazes. It is very much like trying to squeeze just a few more drops out of an orange!

ASH

Over the years I have used ash glazes with ash from a variety of sources. The composition of the ash, rarely mattered based on how I was using it. In recent years, that has changed quite a bit. The ash glaze I am primarily using can swing widely in appearance based on where the ash comes from.

My current, but dwindling ash supply is a blend of ash that I got from Bill Klock and my father-in-law. Bill’s ash was a mix of soft and hard woods from his tree farm. The ash from my father-in-law is composed of a myriad of things; soft, medium and hard wood, construction scrap, paper ash, charcoal ash, and other misc. sources. The blend of the two gives me a good glaze that is amber/aventurine speckled where thin and runny Karatsu style where thick. This glaze can be used in a variety of ways.

I am currently testing new batches of ash from my sister-in-law and an old neighbor. As suspected, the results are different than I have been used to, but given time, patience and constant testing, I should be able to come up with a blend that works right for me and my pottery.

The tall kushime cap jar was glazed in my temmoku glaze and my old haiyu ash glaze.

ENSO

KOKO ENJO (“Each thing is perfect”)

The enso is a prevelant image in the art of Zen Buddhism. It is used to express the complex nature of Zen and represents everything and nothing, completeness, brightness, empty yet overflowing. I have always thought of the enso as the physics formula equivalent of Zen Buddhism.

I find the enso a provocative image that can be “drawn” in an infinite variety and can be evoke a different response from each viewer. The image appeals to me as it visually represents the spinning wheel and the nothingness you start with a lump of clay. It reminds me of those moments of “moving Zen” when a truly great potter is throwing, without thought and consciousness, the pot just happens. For me, it is hard to separate the enso image and the chawan of the Momoyama and early Edo days. These are pots that appear to have just happened, made by unknown craftsman, without ego and intellectualism.