SHINO

After posting the Arakawa Toyozo Shino mizusashi last week, I remembered that somewhere I had another illustration of a similar design on a scroll painting. Illustrated is the image painted in ink from a mounted scroll, kakejiku by Arakawa. The image is a simple Shino chawan with a casual landscape decorating the bowl with the caption that reads; SHINO. It is unclear why the simple caption, but having seen a number of his scroll, several of this design and even more of his Shino chawan, this image is the epitome of Shino as the scroll clearly states.

"and when I think of the Momoyama, the first thing which floats to my mind is shino. If I think about shino, than Mino comes to mind. It seems as though shino has become rather famous."  Arakawa Toyozo

See this blog post for a previous version of the same image;

http://albedo3studio.blogspot.com/2011/09/chawan-scroll.html

IRON KESHIKI

Illustrated is a pot that you don't see every day, a casually glazed and decorated Shino mizusashi by Arakawa Toyozo. Though all Shino, the form has a certain amount of Karatsu inspiration in the making but the glaze and classic iron underglaze decoration of a mountain and tree landscape is all Mino and pure Arakawa. The thin glaze created a blushed hue in the firing rather than a more pure Shino white surface and there are areas around the top portion of the pot where ash has landed creating a very nice effect. The underglaze decoration used on this mizusashi is typical of Arakawa's work and can be seen on a large number of his pots though this particular rendition has a very Momoyama suiboku style feeling to the design easily at home painted in ink on paper as it is on ceramic. The gallery where the lid rests is fully glazed over and has no scars from wad impressions so the pot was made without a ceramic lid and comes complete with a custom made ro-iro lacquer one which highlights the rough wood grain. I guess I will always think of this pot as the mizusashi with the great keshiki with the wonderful landscape.

"The landscape belongs to the person who looks at it..."     Ralph Waldo Emerson

(Photo used with the permission of a private collector.)

WE ARE STARDUST

I spent the afternoon tooling pots on and off the wheel today while listening to a cd I made with some great 70s classics from Cat Stevens to CSNY and Joni Mitchell and thought to share the moment with two versions of one of the greatest and most pivotal songs of the 1970s, WOODSTOCK written by Joni Mitchell and preformed by her and another version by CSNY. Enjoy.

Joni Mitchell - WOODSTOCK

CSNY - WOODSTOCK

TOO MUCH GAS

I have been making a thickish white slip out of my porcelain slurry for a while now with a touch of soda ash and frit and find myself having a problem with too much gas being released during the firing and sometimes (?) causing pinholes. Since the slurry comes right out of the bucket as is, I have been playing around with ways to help eliminate the problem with mixed results and in one case the slip shivers off the pot after the glaze firing. Using smaller test rings I have made a few alterations and now fire the bisque a bit hotter and for a longer period of time. The last test batch showed promise so I threw a large teabowl this morning that will be my next step following the tested procedure. I also decided to go with a hakeme decoration as that seems to compound the pinholing problem so we will see what happens once the bowl is tooled, dried, bisque, and glaze fired. The more you change things the more they change! Should have paid more attention  to the philosophical concept of cause and effect and how it applies to chemistry, physics and pottery.

"In everything we ought to look to the end."  Jean de La Fontaine (1621-1695)

SUPERSIZED

I recently saw a video from a Japanese TV show where they show a huge chawan made during the Meiji period, it was about two feet in diameter and it got me thinking again about volume and scale in relationship to chadogu, but chawan in particular. Though two feet is just a bit large for a chawan, the o-buri super sized Hagi chawan of Miwa Kyusetsu XI (Jyusetsu) spring to mind. Mostly made in last two decades of his life, some of Miwa's chawan are positively huge, what exactly is the intent? Do these chawan transcends mere function and practicality to be conceptual vessels or more a statement about chawan than necessarily being chawan themselves? I have seen a few of these pots in person, beyond the aspects of function, these pots seem infused with pure masculinity and bravado, sculpture intended for use and aesthetic appreciation. In a magazine somewhere, I have a photo of a Kyusetsu chawan on display in the tokonoma, as a basin with a flower floating in the bowl filled with water and in another book there is a Oni-Hagi teabowl that measures 21.8cm in diameter where the average chawan comes in somewhere around 12.5cm. Functional vessel, sculpture or purely an object for appreciation, I wonder if he didn't make them like this, simply because he wanted to and he could.

As I continue to contemplate  size, scale and volume, besides Miwa Kyusetsu, both Tsukigata Nahiko and Kumano Kuroemon come  to mind. For Tsukigata, the "bushi" (Samurai warrior) ideal would seem to be part of his motivation for creating such large and powerful chawan, but for Kumano, I have often suspected that his large chawan are created at such a scale simply to match the ferocity and intensity of the firing process where the pots and potter are pushed to the brink. As I survey his large chawan I can get caught up in fantasy and imagine such bowls in use by the likes of a Sumo Yokozuna (grand champion) or the Ogre of Mt. Oe (Shuten-Doji) should either partake of tea. Illustrated is a large Kuma-Shino chawan by Kumano Kuroemon. I took the picture with me holding the bowl for scale, I am 6'2" and wear and X-L glove for perspective and this bowl measures in at just over 16.5cm, I think the size of the pot is apparent. Though I have heard Kumano's works described as grotesque (in form and scale) by some, to me there is a brutal, honest beauty to these pots. Their stories and encounters with unheard of temperatures and firings are permanently fused within their surfaces and forms. There are few potters who decide to work at this scale and even fewer who can pull it off but Kumano alone has become synonymous with chawan (and spirit) that are larger than life.

CLOSE CALL

Illustrated is a picture of the bottom of a covered jar, the pot was glazed first in temmoku and then in my runny red iron glaze and is what is known as a close call. It is immediately apparent that the glaze is rather runny and if you are going to dance with the devil, best to build in a glaze trap just above the foot to slow down the momentum of the molten glaze. The other thing that shows up well in the picture is the glaze runs and thins down, collecting to create a crystalline like surface of mostly pure iron with reflective speckles scattered among the glaze runs. This effect shows up rather brilliantly in bright direct light or in sunlight and gives more depth to the glazed surface. This is obviously another one of those unpredictable happenings which makes working with these glazes all the more interesting, each pot comes out with its own individual version of the same two glazes.

SPOT

I made a short slideshow showcasing a nice, salt fired Persian box by Michael Simon, student of Warren Mackenzie. Michael is a master of the thrown and altered genre and his ability to manipulate clay in a natural and simple way is almost unparalleled in modern pottery. There are a number of subtle details to discover in Simon's boxes that are easily missed if the pot is not handled and I thought a slideshow of all the details would be a better insight into his box forms that a single picture in a book. I hope this helps.

"If I have made any valuable discoveries, it is owing more to patient attention, than to any other talent."   Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727)

ASKEW

Cloaked in various hues of hi-iro and ash with strong tsuchi-aji, this Shigaraki bottle-vase is by veteran potter, Otani Shiro. At first glance it appears a nice pot but on closer inspection it is easy to see that this is a pot that takes those 10,000 hours to create. The attention to the posture of the pot, the finish of the foot, defining its termination, the casual lean of the neck and mouth slightly askew all add up to make for a rather interesting piece. The flashed surface adds to the vertical nobility of the bottle and a subtle set of lines running around the shoulder are all of the intentional decoration that is needed. There is a profound sense of appropriateness that many wood fired pots possess as the potter gain mastery over just what to add without throwing the entire piece into visual chaos.

LIL'SPOTS

When I am using my iron glaze over temmoku there are a number of variables that dictate how the surface will come out. The illustrated detail shot shows a large number of iron crystal spots that appeared all of the surface of a teabowl. The general characteristic of the streaky, running glaze is there but the surface is punctuated with all these little spots of iron making for a neat effect. This happens every now and again but is not something I can count on but if it were 100% predictable, what fun would that be?

BOOK COVER

I know a book dealer who from time to time finds books on Japanese pottery and recently he found a nice set of five books on "famous" potters of the Showa period. As I unpacked the group, each in their own protective boxes, the first volume I pulled out immediately got my attention. On the full color dust jacket is a fine Tsukigata Nahiko kinuta vase. Being fond of not only the form, but the potter, I thought it rather telling that this was the pot chosen for the cover where all the other illustrations are B/W. Some of the other volumes had pictures of Koyama Fujio, Miwa Kyusetsu and Kusube Yaichi on the covers so obviously both author and publisher thought extremely highly of Tsukigata and his work. Illustrated is a photo of the book cover, a very fine and rustic looking Oni-Shino kinuta-hanaire, the surface is a rich blend of glassy and semi-dry ash creating a wonderful landscape and the fissures that are a by-product of a tumultuous and brutal firing add a charm to the pot, creating a timeless beauty. Having seen a number of this form by Tsukigata, I can say they have a great sense of strength and honesty that few pots can match. On occasion I use the term "book cover pot" to emphasize the importance and bearing of a piece, in this case it has that and so much more.

"You can't judge a book by its cover."  Old Anonymous Idiom