SOMETHING BORROWED

Though the form is famaliar, the surface is one that is not so common, especially on a Tsukigata Nahiko mizusashi. The box is simply marked, ONI-HAGI MIZUSASHI and the piece was likely made in the 1990s and certainly owes some of its style to the pioneering works of Miwa Kyuwa and his younger brother, Kyusetsu. This classic, thick white Hagi glaze was "created by Miwa Kyuwa in the 1960s and came to its fruition with Miwa Kyusetsu in the 1970s and 1980s ushering in a new style of glaze for the tradition which spread throughout the region and ultimately across Japan. Though lacking the black slip under the glaze, this surface by Tsukigata has many of the classic attributes of Miwa Shira-Hagi but as you look closely you can see the wet, iron rich stoneware peeking through the crawled surface resembling melting snow giving hints that this is something a bit different. Naming his borrowed glaze style, Oni-Hagi as he did with most of his glazes and styles, Tsukigata used his glaze with care and thought creating a thin wash of glaze around the foot and at the shoulder to show a contrast within the overall surface. As I mentioned the form is classic for the potter but the bright surface brings a fresh appearance to the pot much like trading a dark suit for a stylish new white one. It is easy to see how the viewer would be drawn to the piece but an even bigger appeal would be the feel of all the hard, bumps and crawling glaze creating texture on texture, what a great sensation.

FOUR-PHASE

Illustrated is a recent teabowl I made with applied slip under my iron yellow surface; the decoration shows four phases of the same symbol, inspired by the phases of the moon as well as hexagrams from the I-Ching. This particular bowl fits in with the recent group of geometric bowls and devices that I used as I wanted the round symbols to echo the form of the teabowl while hopefully animating the surface as the design appears to be counting off time. I used a thin coat of black slip over the white and when fired, the black becomes a bit droozy adding a sense of motion to the piece, I like this effect. I should mention that like most of my teabowls, this piece is rather generous in size but the tactile surface and foot feel good in the hand and the weight is not an issue making for a strictly functional bowl, for your tea or a nice helping of chili and most things in between.

YAKISHIME

I like being surprised by a potter and his work and this particular mizusashi is no exception. At first glance you have to think, Shigaraki, more or less modern but you would be wrong. This yakishime style mizusashi was made by Kyoto ash specialist, Kimura Morinobu and just shows more of his versatility, creating works thoroughly mashiko and a bit afield from that tradition. This mizusashi certainly has the Shigaraki vibe with its simple, cylindrical form, pad shadows where the pot rested during the firing, nice hi-iro flashing and a healthy dusting of ash about the form. I enjoy the works of Kimura Morinobu very much from his creative use of ash glazes, his highly visible and textured surfaces and now I can add his unglazed, wood fired yakishime pottery. As I mentioned, I like being surprised by the range and reach of a potter, it keeps the works fresh and keeps the viewer guessing and on their toes.

"It takes all sorts to make a world." Old English Proverb

g+g²= t&a

In my last cycle working with stoneware and porcelain I decided to vary the throwing of teabowls a bit and made a group of thrown and altered pieces. I ended up with a few in the round, but the majority ended up being altered square, rectangular, triangular and lobed with either plain combed slip or slip and the addition of geometric devices added prior to glazing. I ended up using the Zen decoration of circles, squares and triangles on several of the pieces to emphasize the geometry of the forms with geometric symbols. I carried the geometric theme to the feet as well, I tooled several in a more traditional, round foot while others were hand cut into triangles and squares to echo the forms. It is alsways enjoyable to take a break for the round and round rhythm of most days and cycles to make things that end up out of round and I thought I would never have a use for the geometry classes that I doodled through.

SHAKEN NOT STIRRED

Mining the very depth of playfulness, which is at the heart of the Oribe origins, Ikeda Shogo (b.1976) is equally at home with clay and potters wheel as he is with a brush and his wonderful designs which he has shaken up just a bit. This particular Narumi-Oribe style chawan is well thrown and the painted imagery which includes traditional devices as well as written English, trucks, cows and even a light bulb captures the essence of what is Oribe in modern times. His work is delightfully functional and at times visually provocative engaging the viewer and acting as both invitiation and inquisition regarding how and what we think of modern chadogu. Despite growing up in Kagoshima, Ikeda specializes in a variety of Oribe styles and what is readily apparent is that despite where he was born or works, he has grasped the very heart of this modern tradition and bent it to fit his own vision.

LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON

I just had this set of Iga chawan show up by father and son, master and pupil; Tanimoto Kosei and his son, Tanimoto Kei. The pair share a number of similarities like size,the fact they are wood fired and both feel very good in the hand where they differ is in both clay and posture. The chawan by Tanimoto Kosei, seen on the left is a brighter pot having been thrown out of a white stoneware clay with a defiantly wonky posture that begs to be picked up while the piece by Tanimoto Kei, on the right is thrown out of a coarser stoneware clay, has a darker complexion and a more formal stance. I am not sure that Tanimoto Kosei has received enough credit for his pioneering attempts to revitalize Igayaki in the pre and post-war years, having made pottery for decades, teaching a wide array of pupils who are now the protectors and innovators of the Iga tradition including his son, Kei. Though there are obvious difference between these two chawan, what does spring to mind is the age old axiom, "like father, like son".

You can see more photos of these two Tanimoto chawan over at my trocadero marketplace;
https://www.trocadero.com/stores/albedo3studio/items/1377031/PAIR-IGA-CHAWAN-BY-TANIMOTO-KOSEI-KEI

DEJA TWO-VU

Admittedly, I am not a photographer, basically I am a guy with a white or black backdrop, a bulb and a simple digital camera which does 99% of the work, in other words, I point and shoot. Possibly the only way I get half way decent photos is that I take the time to take lots and lots of photos, for some pieces I have taken well over a hundred shots and end up with perhaps 30 or so on a good day. That leads me to this illustration, a 2-Vu of a piece that recently came my way, a wonderfully rustic and casual Kondo Seiko kohiki chawan with the most relaxed posture I have seen in some time. I was struggling to get the camera to focus correctly on the white surface and switched to black to see what differences it would make and here are the results. I was a bit stunned by how different the photos are using all the same settings and lighting between the black and white backgrounds and after fussing around for some time, each show the chawan in an entirely different light. The black background played on the shadowing and disappearance of the form as it moves away from the central focus while the white back drop clearly picked up all the the keshiki, activities in the slip and glaze and the hues of color on the otherwise, stark white chawan. Both tell a unique story but at a certain level the stories are as different as MOBY DICK is from A TALE OF TWO CITIES, though I like both photos from what they say, I think I prefer the photo of the bowl bowl behind door #2.

HOW GREEN WAS MY VALLEY II

This altered lip bowl came out of a firing recently and I took this impromptu photo which for some reason shows off the iron glaze as a deep, rich green, more so than normal. I suspect the lighting intensified the coloring which is a bit more subdued than it appears here but it certainly shows off how much the glaze runs and many of the subtle and not so subtle characteristics that show up including the speckling of shiny iron crystals that appear on the surface. One interesting feature of the glaze run is at the interior, bottom of the bowl which is not almost flat, like a still pool where the glaze has collected and filled in the soft curve that was  thrown into the piece. Though this is not 100% accurate in depicting this bowl, I thought it a good idea to use the photo which high lights and showcases some of the qualities of the surface that rarely shows up in most photos I take of these temmoku and yellow iron glazes pots.

WHITE OUT

We have had our share of weather here for the past two weeks being on the fringe of the three seperate Nor'easters that have hit this region but today the sun is out creating a virtual white out as the treees, ground and building are covered in snow and the drips of the melt can be seen and heard every where. The mood as you look out the windows made me think back on a wonderous Miwa Kyusetsu Hagi chawan owned by a friend of mine. It is broad, generous and full of spirit as it creates its own visual white out as you survey the form with hints of the rich daido clay peaking through crawling in the glaze and at the foot where the glaze is either thinning or non-existent. I really like this chawan, though large it is not as large as some of Kyusetsu's (Jyusetsu) later more sculptural and statement oriented pieces, the crawling is just the right amount of activity to activate and animate the surface and the posture of the chawan, foot and lip all present a form directed by purpose and a particular aesthetic. Thanks to the  intimate scale of this chawan, I can't help but see a snow covered universe held firmly in one's hands.

TO THE TEST

Over the past couple of years or so I have emailing back and forth with a collector living in Japan discussing Kumano, every day using pots and also Fujioka Shuhei. He recently sent me this photo of a very well fired Iga tokkuri and guinomi by Fujioka that both culminate in wonderful areas of glaze runs and bidoro drips in which his firing technique seem to defy logic. Though both are classical Fujioka pots and composed of a compressed and compact spirit, they have slightly restrained forms compared to some of his most recent work which is high lighted by areas of large facets and angular cuts about the surface, these appear more comfortable to the hand and lip. This set just exudes a  welcoming sense of function and it is easy to imagine using these pieces especially during the height of summer where the cool appearance coupled with a nice cold sake compliment each other and put the duo to the test.

"Pure logic is the ruin of the spirit." Saint-Exupery