B&W CHARGER

I put together a rather short slideshow video of a wonderfully large exhibition charger by Kondo Yutaka. I was lucky enough to have this 18"+ platter here for almost a month and it is both impressive and powerful, it is now with the owner who has a couple of other wonderful Japanese pots that it can commune with. There is little else I can say except enjoy the video.

LUTING

"Luting; the act of attaching and sealing pottery parts or forms together with a clay slurry"

I learned a long while back that when throwing my terra cotta, it is best to make certain vase or bottle forms in two pieces, throwing the body and necks separately. This ends up being infinitely easier that throwing them in one piece where the terra cotta is constantly trying to collapse at every turn of the wheel head. I start out by throwing the bodies first and then measure the apertures and guesstimate what thrown neck form will look best on each piece, the illustration shows a single ware board with three bodies and their corresponding necks which are put together the next day after the pot base is trimmed with an inset foot. Once the pot and neck are put together I generally add some form of lug which connects from the neck to the body and brings some attention to the join and shoulder area. In this particular case, one of the vases will be black and white slipped and the other two will have an abstrakt resist decoration. This particular form works from very small to quite large though these pots will likely end up just shy of 14" when assembled. I can tell you from past experience, there is no music that I have that can make throwing these in one piece an enjoyable experience, thanks goodness to the person who pioneered luting pieces together all those centuries ago.  

GONE YESTERDAY, HERE TODAY

I know it will sound rather cliché but it is funny how things work out. In less than a month, we have collected two pieces that were recently posted on my blog, pieces that my wife and I both thoroughly enjoyed visually and now in person. In the first case the piece, a Hagi chaire was very similar to one posted, it is  nearly a perfect match in surface but of a different but stunning form. The other piece in question, a seiji chawan, we were actually offered the actual piece that I posted on my blog. The back story to the chawan is that a while back a friend in Japan sent me a group of photos of the pot in question which I decided would make for a good blog post and now only weeks later the piece came up for sale and we luckily added it to our collection. These were the first pots we had collected in some time and the chaire has arrived with the chawan arriving shortly; apparently what was gone yesterday is here today, sometimes.

I put together a short video slideshow of a very nice Hagi chaire by Hatano Zenzo. It is similar to the previous one I posted at least in surface and in the original pictures it appeared to have firing/ kiln debris attached to the glaze here and there.  Because of the incredible price and beauty of the piece we went ahead and purchased it and when it arrived the debris was simply static infused styrafoam particles and nothing more. This surface is classic Hatano Zenzo and just beautiful in person, I hope this video gives you a glimpse into what it looks like in person. Enjoy.

"Ownership is the most intimate relationship one can have to objects. Not that they come alive in him, it is he who comes alive in them." Walter Benjamin (1892-1940)

完璧

I'll start out by saying this is obviously not my photo, having found it somewhere on the web some time ago. I stumbled upon it this morning and was just awe-struck by the absolute serene beauty of this tiny pot. Created by celadon expert, Kawase Shinobu, this chaire is about as wonderful a seiji piece that I have ever seen, the glaze, fluting, detailing and lid all work in conjunction with one another to come up with a quiet and resonant perfection (完璧 ). It will sound repititious and cliche to remind one's self that celadon creation is a pursuit of the determined, persistant and patient with a large percentage of work finding its way to the shard piles but despite the odds, Kawase manages to continue to captivate and humble the viewer decade after decade. I have seen a lot of seiji, seihakuji and the various color and textural variations of celadon but very few have the ability to create works that are as celadon to the core as does Kawase Shinobu and this little gem is a perfect example.

"One that desires to excel should endeavor in those things that are in themselves most excellent."  Epictetus

 

 

 

TWO BOWLS

Though I use several commercially available clays, my terra cotta is my own formula as are several other stoneware clays that I use. Recently I have been making up small batches of an iron bearing stoneware, formulated back at CSU and Kent State to use for some of my on going Oribe pieces. Made in batches of about 50 lbs at a time it isn't such a major chore and since I mix it up to a pudding consistency, I then firm it up on plaster and have clay ready to use in about a week so proper planning makes everything work quite a bit better. The real reason I like this clay is that it has a tough quality to it; I can throw it, dry it out, tool it, get it bone dry and in a bisque all in the same day which makes testing much easier and even quicker if I use my test kiln so it is ready to glaze the next day.

I built another short slideshow video of two more impressed texture Oribe bowls using the bisque tile that created the first of this group. The texture is a bit finer but the overall decoration really creates an interesting surface to my eye and helps activate the glaze and a variety of nuances that go along with the use of copper and iron. The two recent teabowls are both tall, full pieces to maximize the texture and glaze with just the right curve to the body and inviting roll to the lip. With each bowl, I get a little bit better leaving only 9998 more to go.

"No matter where you go, there you are."  Buckaroo Banzai

シャープ

 

Though I regret not having had more time to study with and observe Kohyama Yasuhisa working, I am quite grateful to have had the opportunity to watch him prepare clay, wheel throw, coil build, slice earth, load his anagama and the firing process from beginning to end. Together with those experiences, I was also able to see him prepare and pack his pieces for his show at the Museum het Princessehof, Leeuwarden, The Netherlands, create pots for his standard ware firing and partake of his excellent cooking! Truthfully this experience was amazing and was filled with a myriad of details that have colored how I work and who I am as a potter whether it appears so or not.

It is the details of Kohyama-sensei's process that are easy to overlook and pass by as one takes in the whole, but it is the sharp and critical aspects that help define his works from the pots of other potters from Shigaraki and elsewhere in both the making and the firing. Illustrated is a close-up shot of a tsubo-guchi of one of Kohyama Yasuhisa's mentori vases. The way that Kohyama facets leads the clay to be cut crisply and definitively in a rather quick sucession of motions that few others can mimic and are clearly the result of having pioneered this particular approach to faceting and dedicated a lifetime to its perfection. It is these fast cuts that define the pot, from the long and broad facets around the body of a piece to the more intimate and intricate faceting that defines the neck and mouth that once fired allows a build up of a wet, green ash to paint the angular surfaces without obscuring the defined sharpness of the details. Though ever so slightly softened by firing process and ash, the form remains as created by a master who would appear to be gazing in to a crystal ball seeing well into the finished work even while he is still adding coils to a pot that has just started its journey to completion.

FACCAITA

Back in the middle of August I decided to go ahead and build two larger slab vases based on some cartoon meets two dimensional design in my head and after completing them went right back at it and built two small but broader vases which are illustrated here. Roughly 13" by 12" or so, this pair were not carefully planned but rather I rolled out some slabs and put them together and surprisingly they came out pretty close to one another. I refer to these slab pieces as facciata or facade vases as it is more about the profile for the design than the volume necessary to keep them standing. The one on the left is decorated in abstrakt resist while the one on the right is tebori carved X&O design, both forms are complimented with a similar neck and mouth with a lozenge pattern caved through the flat to animate the surface. I have also added small lugs to the shoulders of each to help define the space a bit better. All in all considering I am not a real proponent or advocate for hand building, I am reasonably happy with the outcome and perhaps I'll make more slab pieces in another year of so.

WELL CONCEIVED HONESTY

Though  not without its organic qualities, this chawan by Banura Shiro is radically different than the chawan I posted by Kumano Kuroemon the other day. Banura Shiro had a wonderful knack for creating work that has an honest and spontaneous quality despite the fact that his work was well conceived and executed within a high degree of exacting control. I would suggest that the first step in his work was the design or concept of the piece followed by the creation of the canvas, in this case the making of the classic Banura chawan form. Once the pot was made, the general, overall texture was created and then the design/ decoration was applied and for this chawan that would then include a post-firing application of a gold rubbed finish that was finalized by a low temperature firing to lock in the surface. I have always found that despite the fact that Banura Shiro relied on variations of this chawan form and his leaves (foliage) design, each and every pot has a singular attitude and fresh appeal that allows a connected body of work to be populated by unique and individual pots.

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.