Quite a while back I posted
up a picture of this Ishii Takahiro Oribe chaire that I likened to a freshly
picked fruit, right off the branch and mostly wet as if with morning dew. In
looking through various folders I found the pictures of the chaire and decided
to build this short and sweet video slideshow of the piece that hopefully shows
off in the best light. Like most of his earlier works there is a wonderful enthusiasm
in his pots and this chaire is certainly no exception along with an added dash of playful
exuberance.
"A playful mind is inquisitive, and learning is
fun." Bill Watterson
In
the recent post, BASHO MIKOMI I used a picture of the inside of a Furutani
Kazuya Iga chawan that made its way here somewhat recently. As a result of the
post, I received an email asking about the chawan and at the very least could I
post an overall picture of the piece which is a rather simple, feudal and
rustic bowl. Illustrated is the very first picture I took of the chawan using
only natural light and luckily a ton of fine details just popped out from the
totally covered ash surface and varying coloration to melting feldspar
punctuating the bowl, bursting like stars shining across the surface. There are
brilliant, emerald like areas of deep, rich bidoro tucked away in nooks and
crannies like around the foot exterior which just add to the throwing marks and
inviting form and slightly meandering lip. All of these details add depth and
substance to this chawan which maintains its elemental posture under the weight
of its feudal pedigree and dependence on tradition and the eloquent tutelage of
one of the 20th centuries finest Shigaraki/ Iga potters, Furutani Michio. It
may be somewhat presumptuous but it is easy to make the case that seeing this
chawan, Furutani Kazuya both maintains
and expands on a long standing tradition while adding to the Furutani legacy.
Though
I doubt it will matter in the scheme of things the way the world is going at the
moment, but I decided that if Instagram is good for over one billion people,
what the heck, maybe I should give it a test run. Like my blog which has just
sort of evolved and has stayed true to the disclaimer regarding its rambling
nature, I suspect that Instagram will just sort of happen and reflect perhaps a
broader sense of things that I see, hear and watch. In the course of an average
day, I do end up taking pictures that I rarely know what to do with, some have
to do with all the wildlife that makes its way through or resides on our
property, while other are pottery pictures and quite a few detail photos of all
kinds of things here and about. Like the blog where I ramble on about whatever
comes to mind, this venture is more about dragging myself into the moment and
doing so mostly in a photo or video and a simple caption. I am not sure where
to go with this platform but thought it worth giving it a try and of social
media in general I am reminded of a famous TS Elliot quote; "Distracted
from distraction by distraction" and since I am easily distracted, I hope
I can do my best to do just that.
Up from the depths is a combination
of two of my favorite things; Shino and Godzilla. What's not to enjoy?
Having
a peculiar interest in mallet vases, I thought this photo was worth sharing.
This illustration of Furutani Michio putting the finishing touches of what is
likely to be an Iga mallet vase originally came from a pottery magazine from
1999 which shows him making a variety of different pots as well as a group of
finished, fired pieces. As you can see in the photo, this pot was made by the
coil and throw method and the proportions show a solid, purposeful intent
created to not only stand up to the ferocity of the firing process but to
function as intended without fail. The surface has been left with just the
simplest of marks created during the making process with only the minimal
amount of added detail to imbue a bit of animation to the form. I have seen an
handled quite a few mallet vases by Furutani Michio and it is quite clear that despite their height or width there are "fixed" proportions that
guide his hand in each and every case, locked away through years of experience
and study that in the wet clay, just happen.
As
luck would have it, for about a week these two tokkuri crossed paths, both
coming and later going their own way but they were enjoyable to handle and
study during their stay. I had them both on the corner of a shelf though not as
close to the edge originally as in the photo and I noticed this wonderful
shadow that was present and decided to take this particular shot of the two
tokkuri just hanging out but casting a rather moody and impressive shadow, like
siblings, even twins. In the background there is the Kojima Kenji Iga piece and
in the foreground is the Echizen-Shigaraki tokkuri by Miyoshi Kentaro but as is
immediately clear, they cast a nearly identical shadow made just a bit more
atmospheric through the black and white imagery. On a side note, though we live
in very different times, look at the B&W photographs of photographers like
Ansel Adams, there is an absolute clarity to the imagery in an uncluttered,
unfettered and pure way that color can get in the way of and as I look at pots
sans color I sometimes think, there is the essence of the pot stripped to its
bones, pure fired clay.
"To think of shadows is a serious
thing." Victor Hugo
Every
now and again I find myself motivated to make up a new clay body for some specific
aim I have in mind. I occasionally will use a formula but honestly prefer to
just wing it based on having used quite a few different clays over the years
and having some sense of what the constituent parts play in strength,
plasticity and durability. In this case, test body #1, my goal was a porcelain(80)/
stoneware(20) mix so I went ahead and figured out possible materials and made up
10lbs of dry weight clay which yielded somewhere north of 13lbs of usable clay,
having mixed it to a slurry consistency and then drying it out on bats and
finished by wedging the dickens out of it. My first step was to make a series
of test pods which I fired to make sure the clay didn't melt, slump or bloat
and worked well with a variety of glazes and then I set about throwing some
test cups like the one you see here.
The clay throws quite well though
it would benefit from sitting around for a while but I went ahead and threw
three teabowls, a vase, a koro and lid and two other test cups out of the mix.
All in all I am happy with the clay body and think it deserves a larger run but
making up more means more materials, more time, more energy, more effort , more
space and perhaps I can stick to mixing it up 10lbs at a time which is quite
frankly just a hell of a lot less "more" than I signed up
for.
Though
I have not seen this particular chawan in person, I have seen four and that
many more in catalogues, hikidashi style teabowls that at times resemble some
of the characteristics one associated with American Raku. Made by notable Iga
potter, Kojima Kenji there is something very lyrical and animated about this
chawan which is decked out in areas of lustrous black, smoky, crackled
off-white and almost Oribe green splashed across the surface here and there, seemingly arbitrary. The form
of the chawan looks stretched and looks like it is struggling with the decision
to go one way or the other but the posture is rooted in the smallish kodai
which is cloaked in a wonderful shadow cut by the lift of the chawan which
looks a bit like it is hovering above the surface. At its core this chawan has
blended function and playfulness to conjure up a flirtatious narrative that is
pleasing to the eye and all business when it comes to its intended purpose. It
would be quite nice to handle this chawan at some point or perhaps one like it
despite the fact it is in Japan (at the moment?), I can always dream on, odder
things have happened.
Many
years back when my wife and I would travel back and forth between Upstate NY
and Cleveland we used to stop in Victor, NY home of the East-West shop run by
the late print dealer and author, Merlin Dailey. Besides having a stunning
array of prints including by Sasajima Kihei and Kosaka Gajin, two of our
favorites, Merlin had a nice selection of mostly mingei oriented pottery
including the works of Funaki Michitada and his son, Kenji. Though they were
pricey we were afforded the opportunity to handle quite a few pieces with new
ones added (and subtracted) on each new visit. Though we did eventually buy a
Funaki Michitada piece there was a long, slipware o-sara platter with the most
evocative but economical design which had just arrived from Japan and well out
of our budget.
The
illustrated platter jpeg has been on the hard drive for some time now and
thought it was certainly worth sharing. Made by Funaki Kenji, this piece is
very similar to the piece that we used to visit. As I said, there is a
seductive quality to the simple slip decoration which brings to piece to life.
Filled with movement I think this o-sara is classic mingei pottery, devoid of
any trappings or traces of the superfluous trappings of modernity ever careful
to keep any aesthetic decisions from interfering with function. I really do
wonder where that wonderful platter went and I can think of more than a few
functions it could perform if only it were here and taking up space on the mantle
would be first and foremost among them.
In
my down time, I have been cleaning up and discovering things I didn't remember
having like a small bucket of a white ash raku glaze tucked away in the back of
my glaze room shelves. It was of course bone-dry having last been used in CT I
think so I decided to pour in some water and make it glaze-worthy again. It
took a couple of days to break down from what was a large hockey puck of
materials but it mixed up well and I decided to give it a try on a few bisque
teabowls, made of earthenware that had been hanging around collecting dust.
Once glazed, I put it in my small electric test kiln and waiting for the glaze
to melt and mature at which time I used an old pair of glaze tongs fitted to
two pieces of old pipe, snatched the bowl out of the top loading kiln and
dropped it in shredded newspaper and some sawdust and here is the results.
Now
admittedly this is not the most epic raku piece ever made but it was certainly
spontaneous enough and fun, the thrill of reaching into that red hot kiln,
pulling out the pot and moving it to its reduction bed all the while glowing
fiercely makes me want to give it another try despite being more than a bit
hard on the kiln. As the title implies, don't try this at home but remember to
take risks, even small ones as I am constantly reminded, life is short.
Not
that it matters all that much but this is what i was listening to as I quickly
wrote this post, from a wonderful album I should mention.
In
a recent post I had put up a detail shot of a Morino Kako henko with a rather
interesting glaze surface and was then asked to put up an overall shot of the
piece. Illustrated for clarification sake is a picture of the Kako henko which
shows off his rather technical glaze mastery as well as the almost eerie
effects where the two surfaces interact as well as the lustrous, halo like
apparitions that paint various areas of the piece. Though the henko form itself
is rather simple and on the small size I think the vivid aesthetic of the surface
more than make up for those "short comings". Even more intriguing
about this bottle is that it was made as a limited edition set with a large,
full color book showcasing many of Morino Kako's masterworks of which almost a
half-dozen are glazed in this fashion. The set is housed in a large sturdy box
with the vase in a selected space for the wood, signed storage box and the book
which is in a deluxe slip case and cardboard box as well, all as snug as a bug
in a box, as it were.
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