MAKING CLAY

It gets very easy relying on clay, fresh out of the box, be it terra cotta, stoneware or porcelain. In the case of my terra cotta, I have it made for me by the clay professionals at Standard Ceramics in Pittsburgh. Over the years I have made my fair share of clay including up to 600 pounds a day while I was the tech assistant at Cleveland State. Since then, though most of my clay is prepared clays, I have continued to make up small batches of varying clays for a variety of uses and specific needs. The process I use is quite simple; I measure out the ingredients in a 5 gallon bucket, mix it thoroughly into a slurry consistency, pour it out on plaster to firm up and finish up the process by vigorous wedging. All in all, not a terribly difficult undertaking as long as I keep it under 25 pounds or so.

Last summer I made up a clay body that I wanted to fire slightly darker than the normal stoneware I work with for use with a new Oribe glaze I was testing. The darker body with more iron, tempers the green  and makes for a richer looking surface. I fired several bowls from this clay and glaze combo and promptly sold all of them. About a month or so after selling one of the bowls, I was asked if I could make a mate to one of them and much to my chagrin, I realized, I had misplaced the test notes. I only recently found the notes to that particular conundrum and made up 20lbs of the clay and more of the Oribe as well. In a week or so, I should see if the pieces come out as they did before. I say this because I have taken explicit notes before and when trying to reproduce the results, the pots were just not the same. Most likely some variable that I over looked, but sometimes, inexplicably, the results are just not possible to reproduce, kismet maybe?

IDUS MARTII

"Beware the Ides of March", And so goes the prophecy given to Julius Cesar and yet, he did not pay enough heed to the augury of Spurrina on that fateful day of March 15th, 44BCE. He was assassinated by the group, known as the Liberators, one of whose members was Marcus Brutus a trusted ally and son of a former mistress. For all of his great military genius and political acumen, in the end, it would seem, he did not know whom to trust and who to stand sentinel against, his hubris may have been his undoing.

I would also like to take the opportunity to wish any and all with even the wee bit-o-green in their being, a very Happy St. Patrick's day (3/17/20)!

SPOT

A friend sent this picture, entitled "spot" that I found rather captivating. It is a simple picture of the interior of an Iga bowl of a rich, deep bidoro pool that has accumulated at the lowest point of the piece where the ash built up along the walls and during the firing ran and built up in a centralized point. This natural occurrence is part of why I find both Iga and Shigaraki so fascinating and though this effect can be artificially created, it is rarely done so in such a convincing and serendipitous manner.

"The ignorant man marvels at the exceptional; the wise man marvels at the common; the greatest wonder of all is the regularity of nature." George Dana Boardman (1828-1903)

INCOMING VII

There is an unmistakable elegance and beauty to well done celadon. The wide variety of colors, crackle patterns, kannyu style and depth makes celadon of infinite interest and perpetually conversant with the viewer. There are a number of potters who come to mind when I think about modern Japanese celadon, but few shine as brightly as the versatile and varied, Uraguchi Masayuki (b.1964). Uraguchi is practically a household name when it comes to a plethora of celadon styles, he was fortunate to be the singular student of the late Ningen Kokuho, Miura Koheiji and his works are part Miura, part Okabe Mineo and yet entirely his own thing. His creations of both classic traditionalism and architectonic sculptural vessels has paved his way to a brilliant future and even the potential for one day rising to the heights of his master, Ningen Kokuho.

On Friday, I had a package arrive with two wonderful Uraguchi Masayuki pots, one a classic beishokuji influenced chawan and the other an illustrated rinka style serving bowl, both are exhibition pieces.  They were sent here so that I could sell them for their current owner who is continuing to down-size and fine tune his collection but due to a slight family emergency, I have been a bit slow in getting them put up on my Trocadero marketplace. I will add additional description to the two offerings in the coming days.

http://www.trocadero.com/stores/albedo3studio/catalog/query.php

 

SUI GENERIS

Illustrated is a close up of a Shigaraki mentori-tsubo by Kohyama Yasuhisa. Beyond the fact that his work stands unique and apart from most other wood fired pots in Japan and abroad, there is a singular uniqueness in how Kohyama-san fires and builds up ash on his pieces. Having researched and experimented in how he fires and what woods he uses, he is able to build up ash creating a pebblely texture which at times is reminiscent of the nodes which make up rayskin, same-gawa. It is a vivid and evocative texture created quite naturally, through skilled firing and this texture adds dimension to his already unique works. The ash pebbles cling to the work, defining the surfaces only relinquishing their grasp on the crisp and hard edges created through faceting the hardy Shigaraki clay. Though the visual texture is quite wonderful, it also adds to the way light plays with the surface, not to mention how wonderfully tactile the pot is to run your hand, carefully over the pot. Few if any other potter creates pottery with such vivid and timeless texture that harkens ones thoughts back to the age of the ancient Sueki wares. It is a rare and complex texture that is worthy of what modern Shigaraki has to say in the 20th and 21st centuries.

KOGO

Illustrated is an Oribe glazed kogo that I made as one of those spur of the moment ideas, an exercise in haste. It was thrown as a closed form, paddled square in form and "crinkle" faceted, then cut to create a top and bottom. Once bisque, it was glazed in a thinner coat of Oribe than usual so that the glaze would not run and glue the pieces together. Despite its thinness, the Oribe still managed to pool at the base of the top and bottom inside the furrows which run around the kogo. These exercises are meant to be all about spontaneity, directness and the least amount of thinking possible. I think this piece took less than 5 minutes to make.

"Though I am always in haste, I am never in a hurry." John Wesley (1703-1791)

BLUE MONDAY X

Illustrated is a very large pot by internationally recognized ceramic artist, Morino Taimei (b. 1934). There is a great deal written about Morino across a variety of websites, so I will skip the accolades and focus on the pot. At over 16" tall, it is one of the largest pieces by Morino that I have seen. His choice of decoration, reaching vertically up the pot only adds to the scale and presence of this piece which has the sense of some ancient totemic stele bathed in blue, turquoise and tan tones. Named, CHUO (Listening to the Rain), this vessel won the 1993 Minister of Education Prize at the Nikko-kai Exhibit and a special notation and date inside of the box lid attests to the fact as well. Having seen a great number of pieces by Morino over the years, this particular one will rank as one of the most powerful and memorable contemporary Japanese sculptural vessel that I have encountered.

IT'S ABOUT FORM, IT'S ABOUT SPACE

Form is truly magical, whether natural or manmade, it is responsible for everything you see from Fujiyama to the Pyramids and even you and me. Studying form is a wondrous pastime and among pottery, a great way to study pure form is to look at the great Chinese monochrome porcelains. They are uncluttered, most stripped to the barest essentials and pure in their creation. Over the years I have been influenced by a wide variety of monochrome pots while working out different forms that I am throwing, the illustrated pot is just such an example. This particular vase, measures just over 13" and is part of a group of pieces that owe their genesis to a Chinese vase I saw at the ROM many years back. Glazed in my dark, rich temmoku, the simple form called for simple glazing in monochrome with the interior of the foot ring being glazed in clear to add the stark contrast.  Though I have made these forms in various sizes and glazes over the years, it is the monochrome versions that give the fullest accounting of the form and the space which the pot commands. The simpler the pot and the glazing, there more it is all about form and space.

ABOUT THE OTHER DAY

After writing about my recent Fujiwara Kei experience, I had several people ask to see the chawan in question. As I have previously explained, the owner did not want the photos put up. So, I rifled through a bunch of my books and found a very similar chawan, though in my honest opinion, it is not quite as good as the one I handled. The chawan I was fortunate to handle was made in 1978, the illustrated chawan was made sometime between 1974 and 1983. As you can see, the chawan was fired upside down and where it faced the fire, the ash built up and a rich, fluid, even molten tamadare flowed down to the lip, now correctly oriented, the movement seems to be trying to move off the pot, defying gravity. The rich purple tinged hi-iro is an excellent counterpoint to the ash and paints a very noble and dignified atmosphere about this chawan. The works of Fujiwara Kei are unfettered and uncomplicated, they present an honest expressions that is most welcome among the long standing Bizen tradition.

A QUIET DIGNITY

I will start out by apologizing for not having any pictures to go along with this post, but I am respecting the wishes of the owner to keep the photos to myself. That out of the way, I recently had the opportunity to handle and spend time with a magnificent Fujiwara Kei Bizen chawan. Though a bit on the small side, its rounded form, exceptional potting and firing created a piece well beyond its measurements. Fired upside down, over half of the exterior surface is covered in cascading ash, tamadare, that all moves up to the lip, the remainder of the exterior and interior are covered in a beautiful, even serene purple hued hi-iro sheen with wisps of smoky trails where the fired had caressed the bowl. To some I am sure the bowl may seem out of step with what is modern Bizen, but the quiet dignity of the chawan exudes an inescapable eloquence that few potters can muster. What also can be mistaken for simple throwing is in fact a lifelong dedication to creating pots with a seemingly naive honesty that was present during the days of the Momoyama era. There was a time when this style of potting ushered in a second renaissance, similar to the Momoyama times and lead by the giants of the 20th century; men like Fujiwara Kei, Kaneshige Toyo, Arakawa Toyozo, Nakazato Muan, Miwa Kyuwa and a few others lead a resurgence of ideals that had been long lost. This particular pot and potter managed to create a new voice for Bizen that will act as a standard for centuries to come.

"True eloquence consists in saying all that is proper, and nothing more." Francois de La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680)