NOT EXACTLY CROCUS SATIVUS

A number of years ago while still living in Cleveland, friends of our invited us out to a rather nice Indian restaurant near Chagrin Falls. One of the dishes that was brought out was a bowl of brightly colored and textured saffron rice with four small flower petals as garnishes. I was taken by the presentation but it was the textured color that really drew me in. Making notes, I decided this would be a goal one of these days, a rich and flowing saffron glaze but it would be a decade before I circled back to that moment and thought. Illustrated is a very simple pouring bowl, only about 9" or so across with a central bowl and outer flange lip I use to create a bit of visual tension in the piece, it is noticeable that once dipped, I allowed the glaze to drain out toward the spout. The surface is my saffron glaze over a clear glaze made using yellow and red iron in the formula. This glaze works best on pieces that allows the movement and flow of the surface to create a range of effects and a variety of textures over the piece but care needs to be taken as gravity will run the glaze right off the pots and on to the shelves depending on the use and thickness. It took me a long time to get back to this idea and I wonder what is next after all, there is always something.

"I'm trying to think but nothing happens." Jerome Lester Horwitz (1903-1952)

TAMANEGI?

Illustrated is a photo from an article in the December 15th edition of the Okinawan Times of Iga veteran potter Kojima Kenji and a wonderful Iga bottle with a rich emerald coating of natural (shizen) ash glaze running from mouth to shoulder with a variety of other effects finishing out the ensemble. Kojima-san's most recent exhibition was in the Okinawan capital of Naha where seventy pieces were on display through December 20th, 2015. This particular bottle is typical of the surfaces Kojima gets in his kiln using mostly pine for his firings with vivid glassy surfaces balanced with rich fire colors and charcoal effects. I am immediately reminded of an old onion bottle typically seen on pre-modern sailing ships and used to store wine or brandy and with the very glassy neck it puts me in mind all the more due to its bidoro appearance. It must have been quite an exhibition!

YET ANOTHER

Illustrated is yet another uzukumaru style vase with a shoulder blanketed in ash and a cascade that encircles the pieces in 360 degrees. This uzukumaru has a decorated shoulder as well but in this case it is not the classic Shigaraki fence design but rather a series of arabesque slashes and cuts in the clay that makes for a rich border around this robust pot. Though seemingly a classic style Shigaraki piece this pot hails from Mashiko and was made by veteran potter Takauchi Shugo (b.1937). Most likely best known for his Shino and Oribe pottery, Shugo has produced a number of classically inspired pots that have been wood fired without glaze (yakishime) and are haikaburi style. This sturdy and classic piece was made in the early 1990's and has a wonderful array of wood fired effects with a well addressed mouth and neck and rather fanciful decoration with a lyrical quality. Though made a distance from Shigaraki, this pot embodies the feudal spirit of the archetypical uzukumaru while blending traditionalism with spontaneous expressionism (of design) that Takauchi Shugo is well known for.

座ってください

Illustrated is another feudal style uzukumaru vase by the late Tani Seiuemon of Shigaraki. The shoulder of the pot is decorated with a classic Shigaraki fence design and is blanketed with a rich, wet ash at the shoulder, neck and down the face a bit while the rest of the pot is peppered in ash creating a snowy effect about the piece. This form is a classic shape of the Shigaraki region having made its way from the late Muramachi and early Momoyama days as an adopted piece for tea ceremony and most likely got its name from its resemblance to a person who is sitting or squatting. I would have to say that this form is ubiquitously synonymous with Shigaraki pottery and all most all of the regional potters make their own interpretation of the form of which this one by Tani-san is a particularly well fired and nice example.

Other post about Tani Seiuemon;

http://albedo3studio.blogspot.com/2014/11/tani-san-iii.html

http://albedo3studio.blogspot.com/2012/10/tani-san-ii.html

http://albedo3studio.blogspot.com/2012/10/presento.html

A MOMENT WITH SLIP

I was digging through some old files on the hard drive and found this video that I made quite a while back of me slip trailing a small bowl. The bowl is terra cotta to which I then brush a layer of black slip over before trailing white slip in a design I have been using since my Cleveland State days. Based on one of an array of fantasy characters that I came up with while doodling on my hour long train and bus trek from home to the pottery studio, this and several other devices find their way on my work in a myriad of approaches. The illustration, though not of this bowl gives you an idea of what the finished piece looks like under a clear glaze and how the design is situated on the pot to look like you are looking through a hole in the wall with the decoration disappearing off the edges. It is a short watch, enjoy.

HAPPY NEW YEARS TO ONE AND ALL

Just wanted to wish everyone a very Happy New Year for 2016, the year of the monkey. I have set a number of goals for my pottery this coming year and with a little luck I can make some in roads to achieving some long sought after glazes as well which means 2016 will be the year of perpetual testing!

皆さん明けましておめでとうございます!

MOMENTARY RESULTS

Like a lot of the rest of the country, the weather has not been exactly ideal here and there are those times when I am certain I may never see sunshine again and the past two days have been just that. Yesterday we had ice and snow with more ice on top building creating a blanket of crusty ice across the region, but no sun to speak of and today between intermittent icy rain and thick fog the day has been bleak at best until for a brief few moment that sun poked through the clouds and the resulting picture is the momentary result. I grabbed the camera and took the shot just in time for the sun to disappear and then checked to see if the camera captured what my eye had seen and luckily enough it did. Half cloaked in darkness a chaire emerged from the shadows to reveal a wonderful surface of ash with a rich bidoro drip reminding me of an ice coated rock face in the midst of a spring thaw. This particular Shigaraki chaire is by the late kiln and pottery master, Furutani Michio and was made sometime in the first decade of his career. I have made a slideshow of the pot and will put it up at another time but I thought for today, this image would suffice and would make a dreary Wednesday just a bit brighter.

OVERALL

Last week I posted up a detail shot of a lid that I repaired with pewter lacquer and thought to post up a picture of the overall view of the pot. Though not particularly large, I thought the pot had come out rather nice with a thick slip combed texture under one of my Oribe style glazes in which the exposed clay through the slip and depth of the recesses makes for a wide array of glaze effects and color variations. Though I have broken my fair share of pots over the years and have grown somewhat callous to the process, I just didn't want to break this piece and decided that the slight repair was more than enough to save the pot from the shard pile. I should also say that had the lid or body of the pot cracked due to my throwing or drying I would have broke it without a second thought but having foreign matter in the clay is just a variable I have zero control over and in my mind the mitigating circumstance.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS 2015

I wanted to take a moment and wish everyone the Happiest of Holidays, a Merry Christmas or Festivus to all from Khan and the folks here at I, POTTER!

INSTANT ASSOCIATION

I have had this photo on the hard-drive for some time and decided it was time to put it up on my blog. I came across this doing some web surfing, I think I was specifically searching for Hamada Shoji and this pot showed up and it was an immdiate case of instant association. The reason I kept it, besides being a classic and nice example of Okinawan pottery was that I could not help but be reminded of Christmas by the overall appearance of the piece. To the best of my knowledge this mizusashi is not marked/ signed but has many of the classic signs of traditional modern Okinawan (Ryukyu) pottery with a heavily slipped body, carved decoration, addition of rich colored accents, iron and or gosu highlights, a good quality clear glaze and lastly overglaze enamel decoration. In this case the bright red and green overglazes coupled with the copper and cobalt washes and a tropical theme makes me think of a San Diego Xmas and despite knowing better, I can't help but think of this pot as the first Xmas Okinawan mizusashi that I have ever seen. Happy Holidays!