A Rambling Blog About A Potter And Pots
Despite the task at hand and the loud music in the background, it is hard to focus on glazing and kiln loading. As I work, my mind drifts to the number of Japanese potters, especially in and around Mashiko, that have lost not only their gas and wood kilns, but their homes as well. Though I know how resilient potters are and can be, I can not help but think about the loss and all of the energy (and expense) that will have to go into rebuilding their kilns, studios and places for family and students. I am humbled by their ability to cope and write about their ordeals in what seems like a stubborn cavalier outlook. I suspect they are just counting down to when they well be potting again in the very near future.
I am just always struck that despite the fact I have done this numerous times before, each glazing is just anything but routine. That is the real surprise. At this point of my potting life, you would think this would just happen exactly like every cycle before, but that never happens. Quite possibly this is a really good thing. Keeps me on my toes and ready to adapt to varying forms, numbers of pots and how they will all fit into the kiln, not to mention where they should fit in the kiln. Like most kilns, the top is maybe 20 degrees hotter than the bottom and this does have its impact on the glazes.
The kiln is now all loaded and ready to go. I will fire it off tomorrow and by early evening it will be in the hands of the “kiln gods”. I can only hope that I have played my part to the best of my ability and let the unseen variables do their best to make for another good firing…………….
“Nothing is really work unless you would rather be doing something else.” James Matthew Barrie (1860-1937)
Like Tsukigata, Murata’s pathway started early on in pottery. He sought out potters he could study with that would help him answer his questions about clay and the Mino tradition in particular. Early on he worked with Kato Kobei V whose heritage connected the old style Shino and Mino tradition with the burgeoning revival of the Momoyama aesthetic. From there he went on the study with 20th century legend, Kato Tokuro. From Tokuro, he would have learned the essentials of technology, firing and the many facets of Mino pottery; Shino, Oribe, Seto-Guro, Ki-Seto, to name a few. After leaving the workshop of Kato Tokuro, he finished his education with the tutelage of Kato Hajime. Whatever questions about aesthetics and technology that may have remained, he would have found answers with Kato Hajime. Hajime, designated Ningen Kokuho, was a master of form and surface. He mastered whatever he set after and was as adept in Persian blue with underglaze gold all the way to Bizen ware. I can not imagine three greater teachers to prepare one for the real world of making pottery for a living.
So, he left the realm of study and set up a pottery and built his kiln. His pathway, like Tsukigata, leads him to explore the nature of Shino and its relationship with iron, among other things. In time, using a liberal blend of iron and Shino glazes, coupled with the natural ash deposits of his wood firing, he arrived at his Juko-Shino. The Juko-Shino wares he made are classified as kiln change Shino (Gama-Yohen Shino) and in many cases; the surfaces are heavily coated with ash, in a tamadare style cascade.
Where Tsukigata and Murata differ is in the nature of their pieces and the depth of the surface. Murata’s works tend to be more on the conservative side and along the lines of proven archetypes. His surfaces also have a bit less depth than Tsukigata, partially, I believe, because Tsukigata took on glazing and firing with every ounce of his being. Murata’s glazing and subsequent firings fall on the more conservative side and possibly end up more intimate and less aggressively masculine in appearance. Throughout his career, Murata exhibited widely and was published in a wide variety of books on tea utensils and/or chawan specifically.
Illustrated is a large Juko-Shino (Gama-Yohen Shino) chawan by Murata Juko. This chawan is a wonderfully rounded piece with a thick, translucent feldspar Shino glaze coving the exterior with vivid areas of iron glaze accenting the surface. The exterior also has areas of a thin layer of natural ash glaze coating the Shino like a thin coat of glass. The interior has a thicker layer of iron with iridescence where the glaze has pooled at the bottom. All in all, it makes for a rich visual surface that coats the well conceived form and steps away from our usual concept of Shino. Potters like Murata Juko, Tsukigata Nahiko, Kumano Kuroemon and others, push our concept of Shino into a whole new realm, this chawan is no exception.
Illustrated is a classic, sturdy and simple form that stands the test for wood firing. This simple cylindrical Bizen vase was made by Yoshimoto Tadashi (b. 1944) who studied with legendary potter, Kaneshige Toyo. This vase exhibits a variety of ash effects from goma and sangiri to the vivid bota-mochi areas of bright orange bare to the clay body. This vase has it all and reminds me of one of those computer generated visions of some galactic far away nebula “burned” on to the clay surface. From my perspective, this pot was made to be wood fired…..
I really like making slipware pots. The process, though somewhat unforgiving of error, makes for a quick and sometimes spontaneous outcome. Some designs are well planned out; others just seem to happen as the slip trailer touches down. My approach is about fun and fantastical design, little of my work borrows from the slipware archetype, though I have been known to make “copies” of older slip trailed pots. I usually use a clear glaze over my slipware but on occasion, I have used amber, green, purple and Persian blue glazes as well. Each transparent glaze gives the slip ware a very different look. My favorite though, is the black and white. Illustrated is a pair of 17” wall bowls. They are very shallow bowls with extensive patterning on them. The bowl on the left has been sectored off into areas then trailed with contrasting slip designs, the one on the right has been sectioned off into a grid pattern with various, mostly spontaneous designs. The real joy of slip trailing is that once you put that slip bottle down, the pot is done until it is time to glaze. I really respond to the immediacy of this process, not to mention, it ends up being fun along the way.
“I want to go beyond virtuosity: I want to strip my work of ‘effects’ until it stand monolithic, based on reality and yet transcending it. It must flow naturally from my materials (from the chisel and the way of the block). This is very difficult but is the only right way. It is the ultimate ideal.” The above quote is from famed Japanese print artist, Munakata Shiko (1903-1975) from the book; THE WOODBLOCK AND THE ARTIST. Munakata was part of the growth of the Mingei movement and friends with Bernard Leach, Yanagi Soetsu, Shoji Hamada and his very good friend Kawai Kanjiro. From my perspective, Munakata’s statement, though relating to print making, could relate to any artistic or craft endeavor and is very relevant to pottery. He understood what all many potters strive for, to “allow the clay to speak”. As most know this is certainly not easy and takes a lifetime to work towards.
Munakata had a unique relationship to pottery through his close friend, master potter, Kawai Kanjiro. Over the years, Munakata portrayed the pots of Kawai in his prints and paintings, in essence, paying homage to the achievement of his good friend. During his years as primarily a print artist, Munakata excelled at ink painting as well as calligraphy and the occasional decoration of pottery piece made by various potters. His works are always bold and graphic in nature. Whether print, painting, calligraphy or pot, Munakata remained true to his ideal, his works always go far beyond simple virtuosity.
Illustrated is a close-up of a san-tsubo (three jars) kakejiku, scroll painting done by Munakata Shiko. It portrays three pots, influenced by Kawai Kanjiro, the gosu blue , the shinsa (yuriko; underglaze red) and the mentori faceted tsubo balanced against his bold calligraphy (shoga).
This past weekend I encounted a chawan by this potter. The form a bit off and the foot, way broad and unsightly, but what really bothered me was the large crack right through the bowl. From the inside (mikomi) there was a 1.5” crack that obviously had glaze packed into the crack while still bisque. When looking at the foot, there was a nearly 2” s-crack that had been decorated over to try to hide the crack, to no avail, it was glaring. In a way, this was a great disappointment for me. A potter, who I have regarded highly, in essence, just didn’t seem to care about the quality of the piece and how it fit into his body of work. I think if this was some anomaly, I could dismiss it, but over the past decade, I have seen a number of his pieces with a variety of cracks, odd repairs and other faults, all with the ever so important signed wood box. There can be no mistaking the fact that this potter made the calculated decision to sell these pieces.
Now, here is my question, though I am not in the position to buy $2500+ pieces, what are the expectations of the potter and of the collector for this market? As Dick Schneider* was always fond of saying, “a potter shouldn’t hurt the buyer”. It was intended as tongue in cheek, but what he really meant was there should be a certain level of workmanship that provided an object devoid of cracks, chips and sharp bits. From my perspective, I will not sell work that is cracked or chipped. I even agonize over selling a pot with a small blemish from where it may have stuck to a shelf, but how does a potter justify selling work with a crack through the pot.
I am really at a loss to understand this. I understand there is not such thing as perfection when dealing with hand made objects, but shouldn’t a base line of perfection be what is strived for? In viewing the irregularities and nuances of distorted Japanese tea utensils, perfection is an odd term, but at the very least, the tea should stay in the $2500 teabowl……………
“No good work whatever can be perfect, and the demand for perfection is always a sign of a misunderstanding of the ends of art.” John Ruskin
(*As previously mentioned, Dick Schneider teaches Ceramics at CSU in Cleveland, Ohio)
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