SQUARED²

I encountered my first pottery by Sakata Deika XIII at the home of the late Dr. Fred Baekeland where he and his wife generously showed my wife and I pot after pot without hesitation along with Meiji era scrolls and Nihonga paintings. The pots we saw at this time, perhaps 1990 or so was an Ido style chawan and a cylindrical vase about 11" tall. Both were nice but we had our sights set on something else but the encounter was more than enough to turn intrigue into interest. On our second trip to Japan we went to a department store exhibition of his work and we were fortunate enough to meet Sakata-san where he autographed a catalogue for us and we purchased a guinomi, all that we could honestly afford. As time passed I collected catalogues from his exhibitions and then acquired the large Kodansha modern Japanese pottery series in which he was featured. One piece in the section on Sakata Deika stood out, the marvelous squared kinute hanaire covered in a wonderful white Hagi glaze which would remain as one of a dozen or so holy grail pots for several decades. 

Fast forward to this year and we encounted this kaku-gata kinuta hanaire that is a very close approximation to the piece illustrated from 1975. As you can see the base is broad and strongly modelled with a tall, vertical spire like neck cutting the perfect proportions for this form. The mouth is every so slightly crumbled and rough in direct juxtapostion to the rest of the pot which has a nearly perfect geometrical figure all laid out by the crisp and defined edges where thinned down or rubbed glaze shows iron like boundaries. As for the base, the glaze appears to be casually applied where it allows the fired iron slip to play its role in this two part harmony that is what I consider a squared square, several times over.

THERE AND BACK AGAIN (2023 Edition)

We made our annual trek down to Middletown, madison and Guilford Conneticut yesterday to drop off our terra cotta work at Wesleyan Potters for their holiday sale. After dropping off the pottery we made our way south and stopped at Nick's Place for cheeseburgers and onion rings, next door for canoli and chocolate croissants and into Guilford for several bottles of red wine. This trek is always a fun road trip with some color left on the trees passing through the mountains as well as areas with a hint of fresh snow mingled among the trees as well. We only make this trip a couple of times a year for this specific purpose but it is far easier than spending two days bent over and on my knees packing up six to eight boxes of pots for UPS which we have long figured out cost more than the drive, burgers and pastries combined. 

The sale runs from 11/24 thru 12/24 and if you are in the area or proximity of Middletown, CT you may want to drop in and see the sale. Illustrated is a pair of chocolate covered cannoli from meriano's hanging out in a test variant of my falling leaves design composed of black and white quadrants flanked by yellow, green and red leaves about the surface. I only made a couple of these pieces and I am still trying to figure out if it works nearly as well as the all black background.

ASH GLAZE, DEVIL TEXTURE

Six sided giving the impression of a Japanese folding byobu, each one its own unique landscape that all ties together in texture and surface. This hexagonal hanaire was made by Ando Moriyuki is finished in his idiosyncratic technique known as HAIYU ONIHADA (ash glaze, devil texture) and works wonderfully on this tapered old form with incised borders seperating each faceted panel of the pot. Perhaps one of the most alluring features of this vase is that as the glaze moves toward the base of the piece the dark green gives way to cascading runs of glaze now surrounded by slightly lighter areas of background. As you get to the mouth and upper neck, the wetness of the surface becomes a bit drier as the the glaze has thinned out a bit due to gravity and the heat of the wood firing. 

 All told, this is a classic pot by Ando Moriyuki and you can see more of this pot over on my Trocadero page;

https://www.trocadero.com/stores/albedo3studio/items/1485476/ANDO-MORIYUKI-HAIYU-ONIHADA-HEXAGONAL-HANAIRE

VETERAN'S DAY 2023

This year I decided to tell my personal Veterans Day story or to be honest, that of my father and mother. My dad, Arthur E. Bird was one of seven siblings and as the Second World War approached closer and closer he and his family thought about its impact. Just a few months shy of the outbreak of the war my father was hit by a drunk driver where he sustained massive injuries including a broken right leg, a broken pelvis, his back, most of the ribs on his right side and his collarbone along with internal injuries but despite this as he recuperated all he could think of was joining the US Army which he did in late 1942. Though finishing boot camp he was deemed ineligible for combat duty overseas and received advanced medics training and was assigned to troop and prisoner trains crisscrossing the country while stationed at Fort Dix, NJ and Fort Benning, GA. 

 This is of course where my story comes in as my father would take leave and spend time in NYC where he met my mother, Nancy T. Antonacci who worked in the US Army Signal Core where she acted as a coded stenographer. Both of my parents and their siblings felt the need to serve in some capacity ranging from DOD contract work, USO assistance and my father's other brother, Rexford joining the US Army, fighting through Europe. The attached photo is my parents wedding photo from 1947, about a year after my father left the service and I make my entrance quite a few years later. Neither talked very much about their part but both were proud to have contributed in the best way that they could. I realize there are hundreds of thousands of these stories but this one is mine, from my family and it is what I best remember on Veterans Day and every day that I remember mom and dad, together again.

SNOW & SUN

Looking a bit like soft, drifting snow over cracked ice, this simple Hagi chawan is by Yoshida Shuen. Over the years I have seen and handled quite a lot of his work, some showing the influence of his master Miwa Kyusetsu X, he must have been exceptionally prolific but this is the only chawan I ever held on to for any length of time. The form is simple, just generous enough and with the kodai, fits well in the hand and the landscape speaks to me of a time and a place conjured up in the imagination, where snow, sun and the warmth of the sun coming through the stormclouds paints a vivid picture. Clearly made for use, the details and visual presentation weren't rushed or ignored, probably all you can expect for a chawan though going that extra step is surely a welcome addition.

SORRY, ISSAC

I have this habit of glazing rignt to the very edge of disaster regarding the feet of most of my pots and this chattered teabowl is no exception. Glazing to the edge of the precipice is probably okay if you are using rather stable and stiff glazes but maybe I forgot to mention that I love glazes than move and run to create motion and the combination of such a surface and a risky glazing technique doesn't always go hand in hand. Back to the beginning, this teabowl was made out of a white stoneware and then black slipped and chattered to create a nice decoration to match the conical form. Once bisque the bowl was glazed in the soda blue I am currently working with, from a formula I first used back in the mid-90s. As you can clearly see, though evenly glazed, the glaze has run and built up around the foot almost to the point of imminent failure though perched atop a thin slice of soft brick to minimize a potential catastrophe. Though defying gravity slightly, sorry Issac, the foot ring is now covered over in a rather attractive coat of thick blue, fractured glaze which certainly is a plus despite the potential for failure next time around and it does show quite nicely in the afternoon sunlight. 

I'll take this one as a win as I continue to figure out just what I can and can not get away with at various spots in and around the kiln and though hope is not a brilliant strategy, I can hope that keeping the glaze thickness in the bucket a consistent thickness and the application to the pot as well, maybe the wins will outweigh the loses which in any given firing is the best I can hope for.

THROWBACK

Some while back I posted up a rather nice Iga guinomi by Umehara Isamu and thought to post up a rather strong Mino-Iga vase by the same potter. Clearly based on a late medieval archetype, this rugged vase has a rather purposeful form, with potters marks raked into the surface, classic lugs attached at the shoulder and a waisted in neck and flared mouth completing the pot. The surface is a masterclass in perpetually wet ash in varying tones of brown cascading down the hanaire, some in sheets, others in rivulets terminating at the dark foot touched by charcoal creating a dark and shadowy base. Though born in Osaka where he persued graphic design he became interested in pottery and studied diligently before uprooting and setting up a studio in Mino where he built an anagama to create wood fired Mino-Iga, Setoguro and Shino pottery to very good effect. Though you could assume such a classic and simple wood fired pot could get lost in the shuffle of our modern age, this throwback to an older era holds a rather firm footing in the modern culture of tea and ikebana where the old and new collide, preserving ideas and aesthetics essential to a national cultural identity.

BAKED CLAY

This is a fun clay whistle, a fun Italian whistle to be more specific, crafted from the fantastical imagination of Riccardo Biavati at his Bottega de Stella in Ferrara, Italy but it is more than its desription, it is imagination and life manifest in baked earth. This whimsical manifestation in clay has like many pots been dragged along through various States and moves mostly in the Northeast with the one deviation into Virginia and like many of the pots we have this one also has a back story be it rather simple and mundane. This Biavati whistle, made and signed by the artist was a gift from a pair of dealers at a short lived gallery of curiosities in Akron, Ohio that we had actually met in NYC several years prior. The whistle along with a large format catalogue were samples given by the artist at a show in NYC to the dealers so when we saw the piece on a shelf we inquired about it, received what they knew of the artist and then gave it to us as a parting gift. I guess I didn't mention this was the very last object of any material that we collected while living in Cleveland as the following Monday with all of our belongings in a big U-Haul truck we were off to New Hampshire to start another chapter of our lives. 

Since everything was already packed, this piece was wrapped in a towel and placed in a big blue tuffy and as luck would have it, it made the journey safe and sound and was also the very first piece unpacked in our new house, a bow house in Windham, NH. The body of the whistle appears thrown, having visible throwing rings around the form with the "antlers", ears, eyes, nose, legs and plinth all attached to the form which has an area of decoration to help define the face. The clay is a buff, just off white material and the piece was carefully glazed accentuating each feature to just the right purpose and helping to animate Bavati's sense of whimsy, imagination, dreams and tales told during his youth into three dimensional forms. Referring to much of his work as his own personal archeology, " Biavati’s works positively exude emotions and dreams. It’s part of their charm and you can’t help to feel light hearted and … smile."* (*From RICCARDO BIAVATI; Poems, Dreams, Secrets and Tales)

XO PEDESTAL

Pedestal vase based on an amalgam of old Greek vessels and more modern Wedgewood made as a composite piece where the body and the base were luted together. Thrown out of terra cotta, once assembled and small decorative lugs applied the foot was pierced and then covered over in a thin layer of black slip and allowed to set up. After firming up the design was mapped out using ink and then the XO decoration was carved to reveal the clay body. Nothing all that complex here, just a straight forward and simple form and surface that hopefully will spend a very long time fufilling its purpose be it for flowers, filled with sand and used for incense stick or chocked to the brim with candy.

BALANCED

Though this may appear very similar to a few other Persian or Scythian design influenced square platters by Kato Kenji, this one is just a bit different in its scale, it is quite a bit larger and immediately radiates a rather magical presence. The border of this platter is of triangular shapes, flipping in alternative directions and filled with black and white that acts to contain or frame the interior decoration of black and white glaze, rich red and green enamel creating an abstracted floral repeat in the quadrants of the interior. As I pointed out in a previous post, the spontaneous and lyrical brushwork which floats on the balanced black and white glazes breathes life into not only the decoration but the simple and functional form which has also turned its attention to both use and aesthetics. Perhaps one of the hidden features of this platter is the rich breaking iron that acts as the final frame of the edge of this piece which is fully realized bathed in the warmth and light of the afternoon sun. Though probably best known for his various toruko-ao Persian blue glazes I have yet to see a glaze combination or decoration by Kato Kenji that has not made me feel just a bit richer and fufilled for the encounter be it brief or long standing.