IRON ACCENT

Illustrated is a rather simply thrown and glazed chawan, at least by Kumano Kuroemon standards. Having a rather conservative form and posture the surface of this chawan was glazed in iron and Shino glazes and then the surface was accentuated by the ferocity and determination of an intense wood firing. The iron accent on the bowl appears out of the mist of the wispy ash tendrils covering the bowl and the firing has created a wet surface that highlights the strong and purposeful foot. Though not necessarily pertaining to this chawan, for much of his work it seems that his pottery has been assaulted and disciplined by potter and flame to create evocative works of clay that seem to have a contained brutality and dynamic intensity trapped within. As with many really good pots it is easy to get caught up in the use of the poetic and over used superlatives but when you are dealing with the Herculean appearing works of Kumano Kuroemon is that actually possible?

INK WASH III

Illustrated is an ink wash design by Mashiko potter and Hamada Shoji student, Kimura Ichiro. Simply inked and rendered this preparatory sketch of a covered jar shows an elemental decoration that is intended to repeat around the jar to create a banded and cohesive sensibility. I have always found the simple and "common" designs of Kimura say much more with in his work that one would presumably expect because of the balancing of form, volume and design which he exceeded at. The concept of the mingei aesthetic always firmly in the back of his mind he made the practical a bit fanciful especially when you look at his molded geometric pieces and his fun "football" style henko which he is well known for. Kimura's work based in the craft of the people's art spared no expense in creating functional, common and simple work that pleased the eye, lifted the spirit and had a glint of whimsy spread out about the surface and lines of each and every pot.

TIME TO MAKE THE TEABOWLS

One can debate the merits of the teabowl in the West where they have many uses from function to simply decorative but rarely is it used in traditional Japanese tea ceremony. I have been fortunate and have had a number of my teabowls go to tea practitioners across the US, Canada, Europe, Australia and even Japan but the bulk of teabowls I actually make are bowls that have a murky basis on the chawan and are simply bowls of a certain scale that are intended to be used how ever the owner sees fit. Toward the end of the summer and early fall, it is usually time to make the teabowls for upcoming holiday shows, gallery orders and for consignments to other venues. Illustrated is the first batch of terra cotta teabowls out of the first two glaze firings, the size and shape of the bowls makes for excellent space fillers around plates, bowls and covered pieces making for a well packed kiln. Over the years I have settled on a number of user friendly forms being careful to stay within the realm of reason in regards to size as I am a bit too fond of teabowls that end up super sized. This particular group is made up of my abstrakt resist, "falling leaves" and midnight plum blossoms while the next group to be fired is mostly composed of tebori carved pieces.

"Fill your bowl to the brim and it will spill, keep sharpening your knife and it will be blunt." Lao Tzu

PARTS CLAY, GLAZE & MAGIC

There is absolutely nothing like the strong posture of a chawan by Kawai Kanjiro. The wide, bold foot acts as a defining pedestal to what at first glance looks like a common bowl form but with closer inspection it shows its user friendly attributes where it sits well in the hand, has an appropriate weight and the lip is out turned just enough to let slip the right amount of liquid. All of these considerations were honed by Kawai over a lifetime of work and experience, through trial and error and an eye for the simplest yet often overlooked details, the master creates a work that has been stripped to the least amount of detail yet creates a pot of supreme beauty and utility. This wan-gata style chawan has a rich iron temmoku glaze over areas of thick slip "patted" on to the surface dividing the bowl in to sections and creating visual depth and movement but born of equal parts clay, glaze and a little bit of magic. There is mastery and mystery married in the works of Kawai Kanjiro that has as much meaning and relevance today as they did over well over five decades ago which can be summed up in one word; timeless.

LASTING IMPRESSIONS II

Now and again I find my past finding its way into the present day in relation to my work. As a kid I remember getting books in the mail now and again that were illustrated by my cousin, David Czarin (Czarinski), my cousin and godfather who was not only an illustrator but a well accomplished painter,sculptor and  print artist who was fond of making mono-prints which thoroughly inrigued me. My wife and I watched him work on numerous occassions and he would create his mono-prints either as a spontaneous work or a well thought out and well considered print design. I think this process rubbed off on me a little and recently I have come back to the technique taking drying slabs of clay and incising fine lined decoration across the surface, drying it a bit more with the heat gun and then impressing the slabs into thrown bowls and jars for a rather quick and direct affect based on a blend of primitive designs, old Oribe patterns and incised langauge used through out the ancient world. Though originally created as a "mono-print" to impress in the bowl, I have since bisque the incised slab to use over again, I wonder if this is cheating?

I recently put this teabowl up on my trocadero marketplace, please feel free to check it out; http://www.trocadero.com/stores/albedo3studio/items/1341185/item1341185store.html

RANGE

When ever I see a pot by or think about the potter Kishimoto Kennin, I can't help but be impressed by the range and dedication to varying traditions that he has pursued in his nearly seven decades long career. The sheer diversity and mastery of a wide array of traditional Mino pottery styles couple with his exquisite kannyu-seiji celadon pottery would be more than enough if the styles were divided among a half a dozen potters let alone one, but over his long pottery tenure, Kishimoto has desplayed a single minded approach to each pursuit until he mastered the technical and aesthetic boundries of Shino, Ki-Seto, Iga, Seiji and others to single him out as a true rennaissance potter. Though perhaps best known and appreciated for his exceptional Iga works, his esquisite celadons blend a true understanding of form, design, decoration and firing to create stunning and contemplative pots, some like the one illustrated decorated with a simple branch and blossom design using underglaze iron (tetsu-e) and copper red (yuriko).  As I look into the celadons of Kishimoto Kennin it becomes clear rather quickly that it is easy to lose any sense of time or place lost in the depth of the refractive surfaces.

MASHIKO, OHIO REVISITED

A while back I put up a post with a carved slip square plate with a scimitar grass design. In the haste of getting things finished, the pot was fired and packed up without a picture taken. In the cycle I am working in now, I made a couple of the square plates with the scimitar grass decoration and took a moment to take a quick in situ photo as the pots aren't due until October giving me a few extra moments to pause and think things through. I know this plate is a bit different than the last and photographing the carved pieces is a nightmare as they don't show any of the charm and folky quality of the pieces and come off as a bit harsh. Until I become a professional photographer this will have to due and you will just have to take my word for it that they are far less shiny and harsh in person.

XIV

I  Put together a very short slideshow video of a Shino chaire that came my way a week or so ago accompanied by one of my favorite TV theme songs of the late 1960s. The Chaire is by the late Shino and Oribe specialist, Kato Yasukage XIV and has a deep rich iron surface speckled with wood ash from the wood firing. You can see more photos of the chaire over at my Trocadero marketplace;

http://www.trocadero.com/stores/albedo3studio/items/1339894/item1339894store.html

AS WHITE AS WHITE CAN BE

I am not sure if this is just me or it happens to every other craftsperson, but it seems like there is always an unending parade of obstacles to getting work done. The obvious ones are where you run other of clay, glazes, slips, colorants, materials or what have you and then there are the totally unexpected situations that really make me want to just scream but being as I work all alone, if I scream in my studio does anyone really hear it? I recently ran out of ball clay that I use to make up my white, bright, very white slip and immediately noticed that it had a yellowish tinge to it, first alarm. Mind you, I have a 50 lb. bag of what looks more like xx sagger clay than ball clay so having been burned in the past I make up 50 gram test and precede to slip a small terra cotta test tile. I dry it fast and then bisque and glaze fire it and it comes out looking a bit more like mustard than the white I am accustomed to.

My next step was to contact Laguna Clay where the ball clay originated and both the Los Angeles and Ohio people were very helpful and sent me a free sample to test against what I had, the little amount of original control group that I still was using and the "new stuff" that was sent. I have a bisque to run tomorrow and then will glaze fire sometime early next week to get my results realizing that I need my white slip to be as white as white can be. In the interim I made up a large group of slip tests using varying amounts of whiteners and have a back up to my original slip formula if need be but at four times the cost. I am hoping that after nearly 25 years of using the material and formula this is nothing but a momentary bump in the road, fingers crossed.

SHOWA-YAKI

There are a lot of books in sets and series that were published in Japan on post-war (Showa era) pottery during the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. I really like this era pottery and the pots that were made, there is a strength and honesty to these pieces but that is not to say that pottery of the Heisei era is any less honest or lacks strength, it is just that there seems to be a distinct difference in the pieces of these two eras. Many of the post-war era potters trained the potters of the late Showa and Heisei eras imparting a distinct skillset and sense of tradition which served as the genesis of the pottery of today. As you thumb through these older book sets and dictionaries I am immediately struck by how direct, often stream lined and simple the pots are coming out of the post-war up into the 1980s, I truly enjoy these pots as many seem to have a lot to say without trying hard to do so and are a tremendous blend of  the technical and tradition vision that drives pottery making even to the present day.

Illustrated is an early chaire, circa Showa go-ju yon (1979) by the now veteran Hagi potter, Hatano Zenzo (b.1942). Studying under Yoshiga Taibi (1915-1991), Hatano learned a strict sense of form, glaze and firing from his master and it shows in both his earlier works and his pottery of today. The wheel thrown and crisp form is accentuated by the wonderful blushing and zirconium (?) crystals speckling the surface with a stiff flattened shoulder capped off by the lid. Though over three decades old, the pot is a distinct reminder that the pottery of the Showa era is as fresh as ever.