Euan The Potter

The Winter Beast

2012-02-15T23:26:00.000+09:00

The stinging cold strikes my face as I open the shutters to the predawn light. It is snowing, again...still...I have never known so much snow. My first winter in Minakami is proving to be a challenge. Closing the sliding window, I bend down to the wood stove. I drag the last embers from last nights log to the front of the stove and add kindling and heavier wood on top. I close the hatch and open the draft, coaxing it into flame. Before long it is roaring, chuffing through the draft vent like a steam engine. I stand beside it, looking out the window at the burgeoning dawn, letting the room warm a little more before getting the children out of bed. There is a sooty brown icicle hanging from the end of the chimney, the condensation freezing as it exits the chimney, how can the smoke cool so fast?
Each morning I watch the sun rise beyond the valley, a little earlier every day, a little further east. It rises like a golden orb between the horizon and the heavy blue grey clouds, a halo in the misty distance through the crystals of the snow. The white surface of the snow sparkles like a sea of diamonds as the light catches the icy crystals. Movement in the garden catches my eye. A cock pheasant walks across the snow in the front yard. His feet leave a small trail of stars behind him, I wonder that his bare toes don't freeze. He stops beside the compost heap, looks around and begins to chirp his raucous call. With each squawk a small puff of steam escapes his beak. He begins to scratch in the compost, occasionally raising his head to call his mate. She does not come, let us hope she has the good sense to stay in bed.

Further beyond, a flock of starlings gathers in the leafless branches of the persimmon tree. They peck and feed on the dried remnants of the fruit hanging there. We did not pick the fruit last year, not knowing the levels of radioactive material in our own garden, but knowing that it would concentrate in the fruit. We will have the soil tested when we can afford it, the levels vary so much from place to place...so far as we know Minakami is safe, but one must be cautious.

A white heron wings its way down the valley through the snow as the sun disappears within the cloud bank. The sides of the stove glow red, the kettle begins to sing. It is time to wake the family.

The concrete foundations were poured last month, and we let them cure under an insulated tarpaulin with flood lamps underneath to keep it from freezing. The cats have been curious, occasionally playing tag through the tarpaulin, chasing each others movements as if they were mice under a blanket. Once the slab was revealed, Jiji (the alpha male) made an inspection, and, satisfied, they have now lost all interest.

It is a thing of beauty.

This is where the chimney shall be...

and here shall be a fire box!

The next snow was only shallow, and made the slab look like a fresh, white, stretched page waiting for the artists brush. The snow continued, though, and parts of Minakami had 130cm. We only had 30 or so, sheltered in our valley, but it has been a challenge none the less. The little truck is only two wheel drive, and getting through the snow to fetch the timber for the kiln shed has been an adventure!

Our friend Raku has been helping, but it is too cold outside to do much constructive work, so we have moved the timber inside, into the room with the holey floor. There I will cut the joins so that, when the snow clears, we can fit the frame together quickly.

But the snow seems to linger, and even as it melts it forms great icicles which hang from the eaves and threaten to pounce upon the unsuspecting who may happen to pass below.

I drive the boys to the bus stop, and Sora to school, for I feel it is too cold to make her walk. Above the highway there is a digital temperate display. It tells me it is -12C. Not as cold as parts of Europe this year, but cold enough for me. I return home, careful as I enter the house to steer clear of the talons of the winter beast that lurks on the roof. His great clawed hand reaches across the guttering, and I have taught the children to be wary of his grasp.

Inside, our home is warm and safe, and little by little we are returning to something close to normal. It will still be a while before my pottery is in full swing, till the kiln shed and kiln are built and I am firing again, but those things will come. For the moment there are more important things to do; to keep the fires stoked and my family warm; to put hot food on the table and provide a hot bath to follow; to listen to them, to hug them, to tell them that I love them and that everything is OK. To make silly jokes with them and laugh till we cry. I will protect them from the winter beast, and nourish them with love. When the time comes to pot once more, it is for them that I will make my work, and what a joy that will be!

New Year, New Foundations

2012-01-13T08:50:00.007+09:00

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

YES! We have begun the foundations for the kiln shed and kiln! Now that the family are truly safe and settling into our own home, I can start the task of getting my work back on track. It is, of course, the firing of the kiln that finally defines the potter. So, after ten months in limbo, the joyous rebuilding begins!

In the corner of the front yard, behind the existing shed (which is currently home to a bevvy of cats) and at the end of the driveway, is a triangular space begging to be used. It is away from the house, which is important for fire safety, but much closer to the studio than my kiln was in Mashiko. It was always a challenge carrying pots to the kiln during rain, as my vessels are glazed raw and even one drop of rain can cause the glaze to crawl. During the four months of winter here the issue will be snow, which is unfamiliar territory for me. The first time I saw snow was the day I arrived in Japan, 22 years ago next week, and even in Mashiko we only had two or three snowfalls on average each year. It has been snowing to a greater or lesser degree every day here since Christmas, and I am told to expect at least a metre of snow by February. The children have been having snow ball fights and building snowmen and igloos to their hearts delight, and there is no greater joy than to hear children's laughter echoing through the flurries of snow in the garden.

I had arranged for the local contractor, Shimojo san, to start the foundations last month, before the ground froze, but the best laid plans...

As fate would have it, he arrived first thing in the morning on January 11th, and amid light flurries began setting up his theodolite.

The first day was spent taking levels, setting squares, driving pegs and putting up the outer guide frame. The kiln shed will be 3.6 metres wide by 4.5 metres deep. Once the outer framing was completed, he parked the back hoe ready for work the next day. He assured me that we can complete the job despite the snow, and I must trust him on this as he was born here and knows his craft well.

By 6:00AM the dawn lights the sky with amber and gold beyond the mountains to the south east, those mountains we crossed ten months ago, but the sun does not show its face over their peaks till after 7:15 as the kids go off to school. At 8:00AM the work begins in earnest. Excavating with the back hoe to lines drawn in calcium on the snowy ground, it is hard to tell the calcium from the snow! As the sun warms the ground the snow begins to melt.

By the time Sean is ready for preschool the main excavations are well underway. I cannot help but dance for joy, and Mika happens to catch a snap shot before I realize I'm being watched! It has begun, after all the trials of last year, it has begun!

A five centimetre layer of gravel is spread over the foundations next. We use recycled crushed concrete, rather than new gravel. Apart from my stance in terms of recycling for environmental reasons, it's cheaper! The truncated pyramid form of the foundation and the gravel are important for proper drainage.

The gravel is compressed and compacted with a vibrating roller, and levels are rechecked.

Once compressed, a damp proof sheet is spread over the foundations, and set in place with 5 centimetres of concrete.

Patches of concrete on top of the damp sheet will act as supports for the steel reinforcing. By 3:45PM the sun vanishes through the trees beyond the ridge to the south west and ice crystals stretch their talons across the puddles from the melted snow in the driveway. Shimojo san covers the foundations with tarpaulins, and assures me it will be OK overnight.

Overnight was minus 11 centigrade, and the tarpaulins are frozen to the surface of the concrete. I wait with baited breath for Shimojo sans arrival. "No problems," he says. "It's perfect."

Day 3, today, we frame the outside with the formers for the concrete and set the steel reinforcing. One of the many lessons which I learned from the earthquake was the importance of a strong foundation. That is why I have asked a professional to do the job.

The square and level are checked and double checked.

Steel reinforcing rod is set at 20 centimetre intervals. The total weight of the kiln will be about 7 tonnes, and the reinforcing has been calculated to support that weight. Anchor bolts for the kiln shed are welded to the steel reinforcing. The house in Ichikai was not secured to the stone footings, so when the earthquake hit the whole house was shaken from it's foundations. The angle iron frame around the kiln will likewise be anchored to the concrete this time, but those anchor bolts will need to be embedded later. It is important to learn the lessons from our experiences in order build a better future.

On the level, on the square, framed and reinforced. We will pour the slab on Monday, and it will take at least a week to cure. I hope to begin the kiln shed on the 23rd of January, and build the kiln in February.

My plans, however, are not set in concrete. I take each day as it comes, grateful for my blessings, and I know that I am moving forward. I know how suddenly circumstances can change, and so I hope for a bright future, but I am taking care to build it on a strong foundation.

Home for Christmas

2011-12-23T23:21:00.007+09:00

We are home. The snow has covered the world in a white blanket, the wind wuthers around the eaves, but we are home at last, warm and safe. The children sleep soundly in the washitsu, and Mika wraps presents at the kitchen table, as I write while I wait for the christmas pudding to steam on the wood stove.
This last month has been a whirlwind, and I am eternally grateful to all my friends who rallied together to get us into this house before winter. The first task was to clean the house free of dust and mold, remove the piles of accumulated trash and give ourselves a clean and healthy start. My friends travelled from all points and gathered for a working bee, working at fever pitch. Steve, who organised the event, made a video which is here on youtube. The upstairs floor was a single layer of boards with gaps between, warped with age a loosened by rusty nails. Any dust from upstairs would sift down to the rooms below, and any attempt at heating would leak up through the gaps and vanish into the rafters. Gennevieve, Debbie, Julie, Bill; Thank You.

Separating into four main groups, we tackled each challenge. One group was dedicated to the continuing clean up operation, cutting up the scrap timber from upstairs and stacking it around the old shed for winter. It is their efforts that are warming the house now. Giichi, Laura, Heather; Thank you.

Another group cleaned the mold, dust and soot from the downstairs walls and ceilings, and the children sleep soundly in that room right now. Jane, Jo; Thank you.

A third group tackled the kitchen, ripping up the old floor, laying damp proof sheeting, relaying the floor, putting in new studs and insulation, then laying a new floor on top of that. This evening the children helped me mix the christmas pudding, each making a wish as they stirred. We sat at the kitchen table for dinner and laughed and joked...Thank you.

The fourth group screwed down the ricketty floor/ceiling boards upstairs, layed new studs and insulation, then a new floor on top of that. With funds from donations from friends around the world we managed to buy enough materials to repair and insulate three rooms downstairs and the studio work space. With the cieling insulated and sealed, I can now keep the living and working space warm...Steve, Brendan, Takashi, Aja; Thank you.

We shared the work, and went where the help was needed. At breaks we would drink starbucks coffee essence (Thank you Startbucks!) while Bill played his guitar and sang...the children all helped, I gave them each a hammer, and in years to come they will be able to point and say,"That is where we fixed the floor" or " This is where I bent a nail...". This is their home, they have helped to make it real, it belongs to them.

Since then our young friend Raku has been helping, finishing the floor, filling gaps, sticking bubble wrap to windows...As I walked home from seeing the children off the school the other morning, the sound of his cello hummed across the snow, and as I entered the house it's music thrummed through the new floor, the whole house becoming a sound board.

I have made a door above the stairwell from an old sliding door, and it keeps the warm air downstairs where we need it. I hope that the upstairs will become a gallery in the future, but not this winter. It will take a lot more work to achieve that goal, this year I have more important things to do...

We moved in on the 15th of December, nine months to the day since we evacuated from Ichikai. A good time to start a new life. I bought a small fir tree that day, and this morning we set it in one of my large bowls in the washitsu and decorated it. The christmas tree from Ichikai I planted in the garden there when I returned to pack our bellongings, it belongs there. This is our new christmas tree, and I hope that it will grow along with the children. We sang carols as we strung the tinsil on the tree, hung baubles on the boughs and as I set the star on the top most point of the tree. Our home is already full of love and music and laughter, friends become family, a house becomes a home.

The work is far from finished, but that's OK. Tomorrow is christmas eve, and we will move the last of our belongings here in the morning. Because of you, who have sent us help when we needed it, we are home. Now we are truly safe, and I have what I have wished for...a home for christmas. Thank you.

God Bless, and Merry Christmas to you all.

Close to home

2011-11-11T21:24:00.004+09:00

The typhoons of last month seem to have washed the colour from the mountains, revealing the sepia study beneath. The first snow has streaked the tip of Tanigawa Dake with white, three weeks earlier than usual. Summer has gone, Autumn has come and Winter is close upon her heels.

Much has happened since last we spoke, and plans never quite work out the way we expect. The time spent at Laura's pottery in Nagano was very productive, and I am eternally grateful to her and Giichi for their support. It did, however put a great deal of pressure on Mika and the children, fending for themselves in this new environment. My role, first and foremost, is to protect my family, and it became increasingly clear that I could not do so from a distance. We have come through so much this year, but there are other dangers much closer to home. I need to be here, with my family.

After seeing the children off to school I set off on foot up the hill towards Takumi no Sato. Our plans to build a new studio on the edge of the craft village there were put on hold while I was away. It seems that fate had a hand in this as well, for in mid Summer one of Mika's distant relatives came to offer us another option. The house and land where Mika's grandmother was born was vacant and derelict, and the inheritor who lives an hour away had no interest in it, would we like to buy it? By instalments of course, no hurry, we're family....

And so we went to see this house. It stands 3.6 kilometers from Mika's parents house, in the west precincts of Takumi no Sato. I approach it now, walking past the mulberry orchard and onto the cobbled driveway. The mulberry leaves were used to feed silk worms back in the days when the family bred them commercially, and the upper floor of the farmhouse was dedicated to the business of raising the caterpillars till they spun cocoons, then trading them to the silk mills in other parts of Gunma. Here, it seems, was the start of the silk road.

To the left of the driveway is a stone walled channel, and beside it a rice paddy farmed by another relative. To the right, behind the mulberries, are vegetable patches, untended and overgrown, and a persimmon tree laden with fruit and bare of leaves. The drive breaks through the hedge, bracketted by cedar trees, and there is the house. Built in the fifth year of the Meiji era, 1873, the year Japan adopted the gregorian calendar, it is a traditional farmhouse of pillar and post construction, with plastered wattle and daub on a bamboo framework for the walls. In many ways it reminds me of Tudor architecture, strange how different cultures find common solutions.

The cats come running towards me from the old shed to the left in the front yard, mewling for attention and, more importantly, food. Stomach love. I ruffle their heads and give them a feed in their new home. In the shed are old barrels and, yes, even a saddle. We brought our four cats from Mashiko after the earthquake, and now we have seven....life is a precious thing.

Around the house are logs and beams and miscellaneous odds and sods. The old man who lived here last, Mika's great uncle, had been a bit of a hoarder. Not a bad thing in moderation. He had also paved around the house with concrete slabs and rocks and old roof tiles and roofing iron and...as a result the drainage around the house wasn't all that good.

Entering the "Genkan" entry hall there is the fragrance of damp earth. I call out "Tadaima!" to the empty house, the customary Japanese "I'm home!", and slide the door closed behind me. To the right is the wood furnace for the bath, then the bathroom and pit toilet beyond. To the left is the kitchen and living space. In front of me is the new studio, half earth floor, half wooden deck. This was the work space for the farm. In the back corner are the old stables, partly filled with rotting firewood. Shimaoka sensei's studio smelt like this, a musty aroma, the fragrance of a freshly opened bag of clay. This room smells like a pottery. A dirt floor maintains an even humidity, allowing pots to dry evenly, and prevents dust from gathering thus averting the danger of silicosis. It is also easier to stand on for long working periods than a concrete floor.

The wooden deck was rotten, as were the floors throughout the rest of the house. But I could see the potential. I also needed to make pots, to make a living for my family. At first I repaired a bare minimum, I needed a wedging table and a throwing space. In one of the old stables I built a wedging table, using stone from the ruins of our old house and wood from repairs to the floor of this house. It seems to fit.

One corner of the decking was badly broken, so I rebuilt that first, making room for two wheels. I had brought my old electric wheel from Mashiko, but I also had Hamada sensei's wheel to restore. The bearings were rusty and the wood dry and cracking from thirty years of dissuse. With the help of the local garage we removed the bearings and derusted them. So many people told me to just get new bearings....blasphemy! We restored it with the original bearings and nails, oiled the wood and it shone like new.

With this basic work space I was able to get the order of cups finished, fired in Nagano and delivered to Utsunomiya by the skin of my teeth.

The rest of the house, however is still unlivable...yet. Debi and Julie came up to help me rip up the studio floor and restump the foundations. Since then I have reframed it and built a raised throwing bench to accomodate the Hamada wheel. I suppose my legs must be longer than his were, it will take some adjustment!

The loft is full of "stuff", timber, bamboo, old silk worm equipment. There were also frames from old "Kotatsu" tables which made perfect frames for the wheel wells. The covers from the storage boxes, number coded with kanji calligraphy made ideal covers, and the one to cover Hamada's wheel even says "六ろ" (Roku Ro or "6R"), a phonetic pun for the japanese word for potters wheel, "Rokuro". It is as if it was waiting for me. Or perhaps my whole life has been preparing me for this...

It has, however, become imperative that we move out of our temporary residence and into this house as soon as can be. Mika and ,more importantly, the children need a safe and stable environment. My task now is to get this house livable, just the minimum will do, before the winter comes. I have put a temporary wood stove into the living room, replaced the sink in the kitchen, got the bath furnace in working order. There is a room which we can use for sleeping, but we must clean out the loft and relay the floor/ceiling so that ancient dust and mold doesn't filter through the gaps in the single layer of boards onto the sleeping children. We need to insulate and stop up gaps to keep out the bitter cold of the mountain winter. We need to heat the studio and living space.

My task today to finish the deck so that it is safe to climb the stairs, and to lay the stones into the "irori" charcoal brazier to maintain the studio temperature. I have saved as many of the original flooring boards as I can, jigsawing them together to keep the spirit of the original architecture. The stones for the irori are from the shed in Ichikai, the one that was supposed to be the studio there, which burnt down the day the lease became valid in December 1999. They are Ashinuma stone, from which Mashiko "Kaki" glaze is made. I carefully chisel them into shape and fit them into the frame I have left in the floor.

It is time to go and get the children. Sean from the preschool, Rohan and Canaan have walked back to Mika's brothers house from primary school. I go to get Sora from basketball practice. She is allowed to practice again now, though the crack in her spinal column will never mend, a constant reminder of how I failed to protect her from an over zealous basketball coach. If only I had been here, if only I my request for more off days had been listened to...fatigue fracture it's called, apparently, but hard to diagnose and once the bone has started to set it cannot be cured. The muscle and sinew supports it now, so she must maintain her muscle tone for the rest of her life. She smiles at me cheerfully as she gets in the car. I drive back to our farmhouse, and the children do their homework as I cook curry on the wood stove.

Mika brings "Bachan" (Grandma) to have dinner with us here. Tomorrow "Jichan" "Grand dad" returns from hospital after his stroke. That will be a celebration! We enjoy our meal in the warmth of the wood stove, and then I light the bath fire and also the charcoal in the irori for the first time. Bachan sits beside the fire and tells a few stories about the family history of this house.

The boys and I have a bath, but then we must return to Mikas brothers house to sleep. Soon we will not be living patchwork lives. My friends are gathering over thanksgiving for one last push before the snow, and we hope to be in the house by then. I hope to have the kiln built by Christmas and I have great hope for the new year. We could not have come this far save for the help and support of all our friends throughout the world, all of you. I thank you from the bottom of my heart. We are are not quite there yet, but we are getting very close to home.

If you are coming our way, you are welcome. Our new address is;

121 Higashimine, Minakami-machi,
Tone-gun, Gunma-ken,
Japan 379-1418

T/F 0278-25-3982

Impasse

2011-07-05T01:00:00.035+09:00

I have been living out of a suitcase for nearly four months now. So much luckier than the twelve thousand evacuees still living in cardboard cubicles in gymnasiums and public halls in the north east, but stressful nonetheless. I recently heard stress described as "responsibility without control". The only solution seems to be to live in the moment, and so I do, seeking to find the beauty, the joy, the fulfillment of each moment, each and very day.

May 29th:

The "Tombi" is a bird of prey (a kite, or so I am told) which is rare in the air above Mashiko, but thrives here in Minakami. I watch it circle in the grey sky above the rice fields as I drive to Ichikai on Saturday morning, the sound of it's shuddering cry just audible above the roar and clatter of the light "kei" truck. It pauses in mid air, then swoops lower and glides level with the car window as I rise onto the freeway ramp at Tsukiyono. There is a busy weekend ahead...

The Solstice has passed, but the days are still long. The sun greets me merrily as I rise and pack my bag once more. I leave for Komoro again today, and will not return till the weekend. I wake the older three children from their bunk beds and call them down for breakfast. I rebuilt their bunks here in their uncles house a few weeks ago, it gives them a sense of stability, continuity, home. I cook them omelettes for breakfast, and make coffee for Mika and me. Mika's sister, Emi, sent us some nice Italian roast from Tokyo. Sean would normally help me grind it, but we are leaving him to sleep today. He has had some chest infections recently, but seems to be OK now. Rest is best. I grind the coffee, standing at my stone work bench, so out of place in this borrowed kitchen, and watch as the children prepare for school. Folding a filter paper into one of my coffee drippers, I fill it with the freshly ground coffee and pour hot water into it in a spiral. We sit down together, "Itadakimasu", and chat as we enjoy the morning.

The boys are first to leave, and they pull on their "Landsell" leather school ruck sacks, jangling as they go. There have been bears around recently, so all the children have "Bear Bells" strung from their bags.

"How are those dinosaur bells working?" I ask them.

They look at me askance, "There are no dinosaurs around here, Daddy." says Rohan matter of factly.

"Gee," I say, "they must be working then!"

"No, Dad," says Sora, in exasperation, "Dinosaurs have been extinct for 65 million years!"

"WOW!" I say, "They really DO work!"

Canaan starts laughing first, and we all join in. I kiss them and hug them goodbye, and tell them to look after their mother for me till I get home. I watch them out of the garden, hear them greet their new friends on the road, and listen to their dinosaur bells jangling into the distance.

...The two and a half hour drive to Mashiko has become familiar now, and, between whistling and singing because the radio doesn't work, it gives me a great deal of time to think. After weeks of spinning my wheels in every way but the pottery sense, I am finally able to take some positive action. I list in my head the vessels I will make for the first firing, the materials and tools that I will need, doing sums in my head of the weight of clay, the minimum tools, the maximum load that the truck can carry. By the time I get to Mashiko I have already packed the truck in my head. Some time in the past two months since we evacuated, a large tree, weakend by the earthquake, has come down in a storm and smashed across the rooves of the tool shed and kiln shed. It hangs suspended horizontally between the two buildings. The grass and weeds are reaching up towards it now. How quickly nature asserts itself. Reversing up to the studio door I begin to load the ware boards first across the bed of the truck. On top of this I load the quarter tonne of clay I will need for the first kiln load, then remove eighty kilos and place it in the passenger seat. Wheel, glazes, sieve, basic throwing and trimming tools...within half an hour the truck is loaded. I strap the tarp down and tie it with truckies knots like Uncle Laurie showed me back on the farm in Redesdale thirty years ago. The truck wallows low on it's springs as I drive away. The next stage of the trip will be slower...

Mika and I clean up the kitchen. I take my bag out to the car, then come back inside and climb upstairs. I kiss Sean gently as he sleeps. Back downstairs, I kiss my farewell to Mika. It is difficult driving away. The blessing when the earthquake struck was that I could reach the children on foot. Now I drive off to a studio hundreds of kilometers and hours away, and leave them to fend for themselves. Responsibility without control. I drive on.

...Back on the freeway, heading west again, a misty rain starts to grease the roads. The rainy season has begun. I know that there is a typhoon coming tomorrow as well. Oh, what fun. I drive on through the drizzle, the poor little truck labouring under the load. I take the turn to Nagano and climb into the mountains. As the peaks become more dramatic, mist and rain turn the scenery into a sumie painting, with dark turrets of rock thrusting upwards against the pale ashen paper of the sky. I peer myopically into the mist ahead, my left hand groping with the knot in the saffron coloured cloth that Mika has wrapped around my lunch of rice balls. Through the nine tunnels and finally the off ramp to Komoro. I stop at a convenience store to phone my friend Giichi, to let him know I'm almost there. It has been a three hour drive from Ichikai...

I am afraid to add up the hours of driving I have done this past month or so. Our friends Debi and Julie came up with two trucks from Kamakura last week and we did three round trips to move the seven tonnes of bricks for the kiln to Minakami, fifteen hours driving in two days. With loading and unloading, it was a marathon effort. Our friends Lee and Jean sent me a Warren Mackenzie yunomi to replace the ones we lost in the earthquake. I don't know how we can ever repay every ones kindness. We are not alone in this world, and we must support each other, from those according to their ability, to those according to their need.

...We unload the truck, putting the wheel and the clay as close to the studio as we can. The ware boards and tools are stored under the eaves, I will sort the studio out on Tuesday. Laura, Giichi's wife, is in the UK with her daughters, she will be a grandmother again on Tuesday, Tuesday is turning out to be a big day. The truck is unloaded, we sit down and have a cup of tea and a biscuit. He gives me the spare key, shows me the futons and pantry, and we shake hands before I leave. I met him at Seth Cardews in the UK back in September 2001. I was in St Ives doing a workshop and exhibition when the planes hit the towers in New York, and, in the few weeks that followed, travelled around the potteries with my good mates Michael and David till the planes were flying again. Giichi and Laura visited me in Ichikai the following summer, and we have been close friends since...

Gallery Ciel in Utsunomiya has rescheduled my exhibition to the 25th of August...I have seven weeks. I arrive in Komoro, and Laura makes tea while I sort out the work from the week before last. After moving the kiln I was occupied with several other ongoing projects. Potters from Mashiko are donating pots to be sent to the northern prefecture disaster areas. The pots will be distributed to the evacuees so that they can enjoy their meals on real vessels, instead of paper plates and plastic cups, and help restore some quality to their lives. In a nation where hand crafted pottery is an integral part of the food culture, months of emergency food becomes a strain. I have given them rice bowls, yunomi and mugs to begin with, and will send more in weeks to come. There is also a project to create a new Internet site (working title "Mashiko Dori") to create a virtual Mashiko, so that visitors from around he globe can virtually partake in Mashiko's reconstruction, the pottery community and the tradition and art work of Mashiko. We plan to integrate a 4G system into Mashiko, with web cams and interactive sites, to take Mashiko to the world. We hope that this will help to sustain Mashiko despite the difficulties faced within Japan. It will take some time.

It is difficult working in a borrowed space, travelling large distances, and I have not been able to control the drying very well. I have had many losses, but I have learnt a great deal. I recycle and remake the pots that are cracked, and begin the next run of vessels for the exhibition. I have some which were prepared before the earthquake and survived, but the main body of the exhibition is still to be made. Laura sits at her wheel beside mine, and I offer her advice and, I suppose, mentorship in return for her studio space. She is very kind.

As we sit and enjoy a lunch of fresh baked bread and cheese, served on plates made by friends and potters we respect, a "Tanuki" (raccoon) walks through the garden just beyond the windows, foraging through the herbs. "Not the sage!" says Laura under her breath, "Please, not the sage!" It moves on, snuffling around the Shiso and Italian Parsley, then vanishes into the underbrush beneath the pines.

Laura and Giichi have been working on a project to provide a reprieve for Mothers with small children from the radiation affected areas in Fukushima and neighbouring prefectures, and have organised home stays in Komoro over the summer. These mothers are struggling to protect their children in an environment with uncertain levels of radiation, the long term effects of which cannot be measured, and yet they are responsible for the health and welfare of their children and have no control over their environment nor the information needed to make good decisions. I sympathise with the stress they are suffering, it is something which all residents of Japan must deal with for many years to come.

...The truck is lighter now, and I struggle up the steep gravel driveway. The rain is heavier as I head for home. Now that the clay is delivered and the studio awaits I am eager to get back to the wheel. But first there is one more task; tomorrows broadcast. Now, as I drive through the rising wind, my mind turns over the questions they might ask, things I might say, the things I wish to share. The director heard my broadcast on TBS radio last year and had contacted me before the earthquake about doing a live broadcast for NHK "Chikyu" radio. He came to Minakami last week to do some background research, the rough draft of the interview questions should be waiting on my email when I get home. The truck is harder to control, with out a load, in the blustering wind, and I find myself leaning forward tensely as I drive. The wind shield wipers are working overtime through the driving rain, and the storm seems to take a breath as I drive through the tunnels, only to renew the onslaught with greater fervour on the other side. It is two and a half hours to Minakami. That makes...eight hours driving today. Mika is putting dinner on the table as I walk in the door. Sora tells me about her basketball games today, the boys have finished their homework, everyone is excited about going to Tokyo tomorrow. After dinner I have a bath and I am asleep as my head hits the pillow...

I have brought my copy of Omar Khayyam to Komoro, and after dinner Laura sits in the drawing room and reads it while I work at the computer. I have been struggling for weeks, trying to move forward, but I find myself overwhelmed sometimes. So I must trust that my family is safe, amid these uncertain times; I must help those I can, though I feel helpless myself; I must gratefully accept the help of others, though I know not how I can repay them; and I must strive to live each day the best I can, grateful for the blessings I have, in hope of a bright tomorrow. If I do not write so often these days, it is because I am striving to fulfill my responsibilities, sometimes in circumstances over which I have no control. I thank you all for your help and support, and have faith that all will be well.

The Art of Living

2011-05-27T23:59:00.000+09:00

The golden light of morning pours slowly through the window, spilling over the window ledge and down the wall. It washes gently across our futons which spread across the tatami floor, and softly begins to soak into the new day. The fragrance of Mika's dark, wavy hair is sweet as it splashes with the sunlight across her pillow. I listen to the sound of her breathing, of Sora's breathing beyond her near the door, the regular ebb and flow rippling softly through the cool morning air. I lay still, floating in this gentle pool of light, the sound of my own heartbeat whispering in my ears. A new day begins.

The last few weeks...is it six weeks since my last entry?...have slid past me like the trees beside the freeway. I try to make plans, but end up dealing with circumstances. Where do I begin?

April 16th; As the cherry blossom flutters to the ground like swirling snowflakes, Tokyo is amazingly normal, virtually unaffected by the earthquake except for the occasional blackout and beer shortage, or so I am told. The crowds bustle through the streets, and I feel like a spectator, isolated from the crowds. Today I will teach a workshop at the Sacred Heart International School. It was to be a three day workshop in Mashiko, but it has been condensed into one day in Tokyo; we have a lot to get through today. Now, more than ever, I want the students to understand how important the simple things are in life, the things we take for granted, the things that make life real. The joy of preparing simple food, served on hand crafted vessels, enjoyed with friends and loved ones....

I have always known that, left to it's own devices, the world is a beautiful place. This has become more and more clear to me as my career as a potter has proceeded. When I was a young potter I would try to force the clay to my will, and inevitably would achieve a result that was forced. As the years passed, however, I learned that it was most important for the potter to stay still and allow the clay to find its own form. One must surrender control and allow nature to be beautiful; In this moment, in this place, for every day of our lives.

...we bake scones in the electric kiln, serve them with cream and blueberry jam on some plates of mine which survived the earthquake. Margaret dips some strawberries in chocolate, we make salad and casserole. This is why we make pots, and it is this moment that they become a part of our lives. In order, therefore, to make good vessels we must understand this first...

At the same time, one must be aware that there will be times when nature is harsh. There will be earthquakes and tsunami, there will be typhoons and floods, and we must learn to be prepared for those events. We must learn from the past to build a safe future. I was not prepared for the earthquake. I will not repeat the mistake.

...as the students throw bowls and plates on the wheels, the building shudders. The shaking gains intensity and Steve materialises a sack of yellow safety helmets that the students don as they dive beneath the tables. The earthquake subsides, it was probably only a three, the students return to their wheels, helmets still on...

I rise quietly and pull on my clothes before going downstairs. I fill the kettle with fresh water and put it on the stove. Taking one of my coffee pots and large coffee drippers from the cupboard, I warm them under the tap before setting them on the stone bench. Beside them I place the coffee grinder, and fill its hopper with dark roasted beans from the freezer. Turning the handle while the kettle heats, I look out the window at the peaks of the Mikuni mountains in the distance, silhouetted against the sky, their jagged outline dark, patches of snow still clinging to their slopes. Closer and closer they march, greener and softer with each rank, mist still skulking between them, till they become the richly forested hills across the valley. Splashes of mauve wisteria and paulonia flowers mingle with the green. The town spreads below us on either side of the Akaya River and Route 17 that runs beside it. Mika's parents rice paddies fill the river flats, and a bamboo grove mingled with trees climbs up the steep slope to the kitchen window. Spring is turning into Summer, and ferns and grasses fill the gaps between the trees while vines climb up their trunks and branches toward the light. Edible "Cogomi" fern fronds, bamboo shoots and young "Sansho" leaves supplement our larder. A leaf quivers in the gentle breeze and dew rolls down its veins to hang like a jewel for a moment before dropping to the violet grass flowers below.

April 17th; A carpet of cherry petals stretches across the cobbled path as I walk to Gallery St Ives. The streets are quiet on this Sunday morning in the back streets of Setagaya. The houses are rich, some of them are embassies, the gardens clipped and precise. I turn the corner and there is the gallery with its red facade, the "Chocolate Factory" pottery studio next door. I cross the road and open the door, the bell attached to it tingling merrily as I step inside. Ken Matsuzaki is there already. We have spoken on the phone since the earthquake, corresponded by email to organize the relief fund for Mashiko, but this is the first time we have been face to face since the crisis. He rises from his chair and we hug, tears welling in our eyes...

The kettle sings out to me that it has boiled and I switch it off. I fold an unbleached filter paper into the dripper, fill it with the fresh ground coffee and pour the hot water into it in a thin, spiralling stream. Froth rises on the surface of the coffee, and gradually the dripper fills. I stop pouring as the foam reaches the edge of the paper and domes across the space between, and let the coffee seep through to the pot below. I choose two coffee mugs, a curved one for Mika, a straight one for me, the handles springing from the rim and swirling down the side of the mug like hair across a pillow case. I warm some milk from Sarobetsu, on the northern tip of Hokkaido, and pour it into the mugs. The water in the dripper has filtered through so I remove it from the pot, replacing it with the lid, and pour coffee into the warm milk. The clock strikes 6am, and I carry the coffee upstairs to Mika. We wake the children and get them organised for breakfast. Back downstairs I make a muesli of cashew nuts and raisins, ground sesame, rolled oats and corn flakes. I serve it in the black glazed rice bowls and we sit down together for breakfast, joking, teasing, laughing.

...there are customers all day, we greet them as friends, for that is what they have become. Our vessels are part of their lives, every day, bringing them joy and relief from the artificiality of the modern world. We are part of our vessels, too, and they are extensions of us, and so our visitors know us through the vessels, and care about our lives as well. I tell the story of the earthquake to them each, and listen to their tales. An exhibition is not about selling pots, it is about sharing, making contact. Sometimes it is the touch of a hand, touching a vessel, laughing and, yes, occasionally crying. At the end of day Kens daughters come to the gallery, and we talk about when they were small, playing the drums in the "Dashi" at the Mashiko summer Matsuri, while I pushed it with the other men up and down the hills through the summer heat...

The kids go off to school, and Mika and I get our paper work together. My full resume, a list of the galleries with whom we deal, the plans and quotes for the new studio, our tax returns. We have a meeting with the Chamber of Commerce this morning. We have spoken to several lending institutions already; some do not lend to foreigners, others do not lends to self employed, others do not lend for business ventures. I seem to be a risk, we need some good advice.

Mashiko Pottery Festival, April 29~May 5; We set up the tents as always, though our stocks were low. Many faces that we usually see, other potters who have participated in the pottery fair for many years, are absent. Some have returned to there native land; America, New Zealand...we do not know if the customers will come, but we will put up our displays, and we will be there for those who do. If they come, despite the earthquake, the nuclear disaster, or because of it, they come for us, and we must be there to greet them. And they come. They come in their thousands. They ask us how we fared in the disaster, we tell them the truth. Many of them have fared as badly in their own homes as us, but still they have come. Over the week we have perhaps 60~70% of an average year in both visitors and sales, and we are grateful as we expected nothing and no-one. We have been blessed...

The gentleman at the Chamber of Commerce is kind and helpful, advising us on the paperwork we still need, contacting the "right" people. There is still the possibility of financial help as victims of the disaster, but need to have different forms...

..One of the younger potters in Mashiko is making a data base of potters, but he does not come to me. Another friend is working on a project to make a "Virtual Mashiko" and take Mashiko to the world. One of the other potters asks me if it is the same project, I say I do not know. I catch the young potter with the data base and ask him. He says, "Your not in Mashiko anymore, this is none of your business." He is matter of fact, and I am lost for words. My Virtual Mashiko friend needs me to translate, to act as an intermediary for Mashiko. I go to speak to the people who lead Mashiko. They are eager to work on the project...I tell them about the data base and ask them whether they feel I am still a part of Mashiko...They tell me not to worry about him, that I am one of them...

My plans for the studio are not extravagant. A simple, square building, 7.2 metres per side. One quarter will be the kiln room. I will use second hand window and doors, but I have learnt from the earthquake that a tiled roof is a bad idea, and we shall go with corrugated iron. I am redesigning the kiln to earthquake proof it, at least up to the level of the last earthquake! And I will not use electricity. Natural light, kick wheels, wood kiln, rain water. As potters did for ten thousand years.

...I visit Tomoo Hamada, and take him some hand made Camembert cheese from Minakami. He shows me his kilns, reduced to rubble. They are already rebuilding. If I stayed in Mashiko there would be help, financial and physical, I know. I tell him of my plan.
"Isaka san tells me you are looking for a second hand kick wheel?" he says.

"Yes, I know that my position will make no difference to the nuclear situation, but if we all chose to not use what we do not need, perhaps there would be no need for nuclear power." I say. "It is a small thing, but all I have ever wanted is just to live quietly, in peace, and make beautiful and useful things for the people I love."

He leads me round the back of the workshop, to the storehouse. "We haven't used this wheel for years, it might need some work on the bearings. It's a present for you." he says.

The wheel is wooden, made from "Keyaki", and in perfect condition. I am dumbfounded. " Really?!" I ask.

"It's from the original Hamada pottery, it hasn't been used since we moved into the new workshop. I'd like you to have it. Gambatte kudasai."....

We return home, we have a meeting on Monday with an advisor from the prefectural office. I check my mail. There is an order from a restaurant in Sydney, Australia. They don't know about my kiln, my studio. It's a project we've been working on since last year. I have other orders, too. But no kiln. No studio. Many friends have sent us help, have offered to come and help, and we are trying to put our plan into action, but I can't get it together yet, and I need to get back to work soon. There have been offers of other jobs, English teaching or translating; real jobs, they say. But I have a real job, in fact it's about as real a job as you can get.

My friend from Komoro, in Nagano offered to lend me her kiln and studio. I built her a Fast Fire like mine in 2007 , so I contact her to ask if the offer is still open. She says yes. I contact the restaurant, I let them know the situation, I can start making their order on Tuesday. Tomorrow I will drive to Mashiko and get clay and tools, take them to Komoro and return home. On Sunday I will take Mika and the children to Shibuya in Tokyo. On Sunday evening, somewhere between six and seven pm, I will be doing a ten minute live interview on NHK 1, international radio. So, if you speak Japanese, tune in to "Chikyu Radio" on Sunday night, or listen to the podcast for the next week.

From Tuesday of next week, I will be a potter again. It will be in a borrowed studio, with a borrowed kiln, but it's a start. There are many people who have faith in me, who encourage and support me, and there is always hope.

From the movements of the stars and planets to the falling of a drop of dew, nature is beautiful as a matter of course. It is not contrived or artificial, it springs from the beauty of the process. I will continue to strive, to make each day, each moment, as beautiful and rich as I can, and trust that that beauty will live in my work. No matter what plans I make, I find myself dealing with circumstances. But that is the way it is, and I cannot force the world to my will, any more than I can force the clay. I trust that if I live my life as honestly as I can, each and every day, then life will be beautiful, as a matter of course. I will let you know how I get on.

The Raven

2011-04-13T22:41:00.008+09:00

The sun climbs tentatively through my bedroom window as I wake to the nightingales call. Just beyond the first range of peaks a bank of clouds reaches tenderly around the shoulders of the mountains in a misty embrace. There is a raven building a new nest on the top of the power pole outside. It is spring.

We raise the shutters in the children’s room and shake them from their slumber. Though they sometimes cry out in the night still, they seem to sleep more soundly with each passing day. A month has passed since the earthquake, and though there are still aftershocks, as many as eight or nine tremors of scale 3 or more every day, we are settling into a new routine.

After a breakfast of eggs and ham on rice, Canaan and Rohan go off to primary school. I walk with them to the corner and watch them down the hill as they join up with their new friends. The raven flies over my head with a broken branch in its beak.

I take the path beside the stream to the main road. Other children are waiting beside the bridge with a grand-parent and a mother watching over them. I greet them as I cross the bridge and walk on to the convenience store. I check the labels on the milk, it comes from Gifu. I buy two litres.

We moved most of our remaining personal belongings last weekend and the hot house is now full. Our friend Take-chan borrowed a truck from a work mate and did the round trip with us. My next challenge will be to build the studio and kiln shed so that I can move the pottery here and get back into production. Volunteers have been helping with the clean up in Mashiko, sorting out the bricks from the collapsed kilns. Mashiko, Ichikai and Haga have all been officially declared disaster areas, though they are overshadowed by the devastation in the north east. In each of the towns there are designated areas for the debris. There are huge piles of rubble, of broken pottery, of stone blocks from store houses, of masonry and timber and furniture…piles that dwarf the heavy machinery used to sort them.

As I walk back up the hill to the house I pass Sora coming the other way on her way to high school. She has promised to meet her new friends from the basketball club and walk with them to class. We joke and laugh as we pass, and I stop for a moment to watch her walk away, her curly hair bouncing behind her as she goes. As I walk up the driveway the raven brings another twig to the precariously balanced collection gathering at the top of the power pole.

I walked around the empty house in Ichikai on Sunday evening, the sound of my steps loud in the dusty air. So many memories were made within these walls, the sound of baby’s laughter, the company of family and friends…I carry them with me now. The house is just a house.

I make Mika a cappuccino while she prepares Sean for preschool. It is our first in a month, it seems so much longer. Sean comes into the kitchen to show us his new smock. Neighbours and relatives have lent us school uniforms for the kids. There are eight other new children at the primary school from the earthquake or radiation affected areas, so our children are not alone. The community here, the teaching staff and the local council are very kind and supportive. The number of refugees here has dropped, however, as people return to their homes. Regardless of the ongoing threat, there are many who choose to return as soon as they can to rebuild their lives, their careers, their schools. Issues of financial security and their children’s education outweigh lingering fears. I wish them well.

We drive Sean to the preschool. He runs ahead of us into the playground to climb on the jungle gym before we go inside. As we leave he calls out to us to come and get him early today. We promise that we shall. We drive away, waving out the window to him.

Today I am preparing for the exhibition in Tokyo. Gallery St.Ives has organised an exhibition for the Mashiko Earthquake Appeal, and I must deliver the pots tomorrow. Five potters from Mashiko have been invited to exhibit, and part of the sales will go to the relief fund. Ken Matsuzaki, Tomoo Hamada, Yuchiko Baba, Minoru Suzuki and I will be exhibiting our work from Saturday, April 16th till Sunday, May 8th. It is an honour to exhibit with them.

I sorted through the pots in the old house last weekend, discarding the broken work, selecting out the best pieces which survived the earthquake. This had not been my first priority, and only now do I begin to assess the damage to my pottery. Work which had been wrapped and stored in containers survived well, as did the tea bowls and yunomi which were in their own signed wooden boxes. Many of the pots which were on the shelves went crashing to the floor, but amid the shards it was surprising how much of the work survived unscathed. There is enough for this exhibition, and enough for the Mashiko pottery festival at the start of May…I wonder if there will be any customers?

Lining the vessels up on the kitchen table. Polishing them up and making sure they are in perfect condition. Listing them, numbering then, pricing them. Wrapping them up again and putting them into containers for transport. I have been borrowing a computer till now, which has helped keep me connected with you all, but we have set our own computer up at last, though the internet connection won’t come till a fortnight from now. Mika makes the list for the gallery on our computer, we download it to my MP3 and send it to the gallery from a borrowed internet link. NTT has provided free internet access to refugees at most town offices.

Tomoo Hamada (Shoji Hamada's grandson), Clive Bowen and me at the Hamada Museum, Mashiko 2009

Though I began my pottery career in Bendigo, Australia back in 1978, I came to Japan with two canvas bags in 1990, to the traditional pottery town of Mashiko, where the National Living Treasure Shoji Hamada worked, to the home of Mingei. I was honoured to be accepted as a deshi to Tatsuzou Shimaoka, Hamada’s disciple and also a National Living treasure in his own right. And when I graduated, I chose to remain in Mashiko, to establish my own studio, and work towards being accepted here, not as a guest, but as a peer. After 21 years in Mashiko, I think I achieved that. It is very difficult to leave.

Tatsuzou Shimaoka, National Living Treasure, and his deshi at his 88th birthday, 2007 (Ken Matsuzaki 6th from right, me 6th from left)

The raven has continued to build its nest, and as dusk falls the structure seems quite solid and firm, meshed into the cross bar at the top of the power pole. Sean is excited to see how it has progressed. I tell him that the raven has probably come here from Mashiko, just like us, to make a new home. He likes that idea. So do I.

The kids are home, we feed them and bathe them and get them off to bed. Tomorrow I will deliver the work to Tokyo. I have a workshop to teach on Saturday and I will be in Gallery St.Ives on Sunday. Last year, Isaka-san, the gallery director, asked me if I considered myself an Australian potter or a Japanese potter.

“Born in Australia,” I said. “Made in Japan.”

Yesterday's News

2011-04-02T22:47:00.020+09:00

The stars still shine brightly at 3am. I hugged the children goodbye when they went to bed last night and I have kissed Mika goodbye. The memory still lingers on my lips as I walk through the cold air to the car. I am returning to Ichikai and I do not know exactly when I will be back.

They have opened the new freeway between Gunma and Tochigi, so what was a five hour journey across the mountains is now only two and half, much of it in tunnels through the mountains. The "Tsukiyohno" interchange is only 10 minutes away. Petrol is now available without queueing. I drive into the night.

Today is the "Himachi" festival and Annual General Meeting of the local self government group. Himachi celebrates the coming of spring, and begins with the cleaning of the small Buddhist shrine in the woods atop our neighbourhood hill. We are scheduled to gather there at 6am.

I am heading east, driving into the rising sun, and the clouds waft in diaphanous curtains of apricot and peach against the ever lightening sky. I leave the freeway at Mohka just after 5am, and drive past the Yanagita clinic where all four of our children were born. It is exactly 23 minutes to the house in Ichikai from here. Trust me, I know.

As I drive I have to dodge the occasional manhole. The liquefaction of the soil below the road during the earthquake made the surface drop by about ten centimetres, so the manholes now thrust proud above the road surface, so some sections of the road are quite a challenge.

The closer I get to Ichikai, the more marked the damage from the earthquake is. I stop at a temporary traffic light where one lane of the road has subsided completely. A sign beside the road tells me this is the town line, from this point I leave Haga and enter Ichikai. All of the houses within sight have blue sheet covering the displaced tiles and broken windows. I have heard there is a three year waiting list for repairs. The lights change and I drive on, past neatly stacked rows of Ohya stone from the shattered walls and warehouses. People are putting their lives in order.

I pull into the drive way of the house and park in the yard, away from the house in case an after shock should loosen more tiles on the roof. Grabbing my bamboo rake I walk back down the drive way and take a short cut across the rice paddies, treading carefully along the raised ridge that separates one field from another.

Up the hill beside the fire station, past Takagi sans house, ridge tiles gone and the family crest askew. His twin grandchildren are...were.. in Canaans class.

The pillars at Ozeki sans gate are twisted into strange angles, it's amazing they are still standing.

I enter the dirt road into the bamboo grove and start to climb the winding path up the hill to the shrine. Others walk the same path, greeting each other with steaming breath, and their conversations turn always to the earthquake, the damage, the nuclear reactors, the shortages, the uncertainty and insecurity of the situation, the weather, the direction of the wind.

Close to the shrine the evidence of serious raking and sweeping shows that the early birds are hard at work already. Ever since I first participated in this festival eleven years ago it has been a source of wonder, that if you gather at 6am as the notice tells you, you are too late, the work is already done. Luckily today I am fifteen minutes early and there is still work to be done.

Representatives of every household in the community rake and sweep, prune and weed, wipe and polish in a frenzy of activity. There are 125 households in our community, and everybody knows everybody, and they are all here.

As I rake I am reminded of my days as a deshi at Shimaoka sensei's studio, raking the garden before the workers came. It was a meditation, preparing for the day ahead. Here at the shrine, cleaning is a form of worship, and by showing humility and care in the tending of the shrine we hope for blessings. Today more than ever.

Neighbours and friends ask me how I am, about the damage to our house. Some of them already know we have decided to move, others are unaware. The Kaichou, community leader, calls for our attention and thanks every one for their efforts. He announces the schedule for the meeting this evening and the celebration after, and declares the cleaning finished. It is exactly 6am. It pays to be early.

As I walk down the hill surrounded by the community, Takagi san (a different Takagi, there's lots of them around here, this one is a builder) matches pace beside me. He has heard we are moving. I explain the situation.

"If it's just the house and land, I can lend you land for free," he says, " We'd really like you to stay."

I choke up. Tears come unbidden, and with a quivering voice I thank him, from the bottom of my heart. But I explain to him that it is more than that; it is the uncertainty and fear of the nuclear accident, still unresolved, that has compounded the situation for us. I must think of my children's health first, and this path is the best I can find.

He nods slowly, sadly. He understands, his own children are grown up and moved away, but if he were in my shoes...

"We will miss you." he says.

I bid him farewell as we emerge from the bamboo grove and tell him that I will see him at this evenings meeting. Back across the rice paddies, I return to the house. I take the twenty litres of water I have brought from Minakami out of the car and into the kitchen. The rest of the day is spent boxing up our possessions.

The things we immediately need have already gone. What remains are the personal things, the years of accumulated stuff that fills in the empty corners and makes a home.

I concentrate on the kitchen first. We lost many pots in the earthquake, yunomi by Warren Mackenzie and Peter Rushforth, Masumi Narita's sake cups....lots of pots, some of mine, some by friends.

Many others have survived, and as I pack them up I say the names of the friends who made them, remembering the stories that go with them. David and Margaret Frith, Phil Rogers, Lisa Hammond, Jennifer Hall...I wrap them in news paper, and as I wrap the occasional article or headline catches my eye... Sandy Simon, Ruthanne Tudball, George Dymesich...The first newspapers are the most recent, the ones on top of the stack, telling me about the radioactive water flowing into the ocean, that the tsunami meters failed and new measurements of the aftermath show that it peaked at 26.5metres, that the earths axis has moved and a day is shorter, that some beef is contaminated... John Dermer, Garry Bish, Libby Pickard, Maggie Prendergast... As I wrap, I work my way back through the days, through the contaminated vegetables and the contaminated water, the announcements of which came days after the actual contamination itself, THANK GOD we evacuated when we did!.. Shoji Hamada, Shinsaku Hamada, Shimaoka Tatsuzo, Hiroshi Seto....The hoseing and water bombing of the nuclear reactors, the explosions, the Tsunami, the earthquake...Ken Matsuzaki, Satoshi Yokoh...Time slips back to a time when there was no earthquake, where political upheavals in Egypt and before that Tunisia led the news.

There are several aftershocks during the day, and each time I dash from the house. The shelves gradually empty, and underneath the pots are other newspapers, mostly from 1999, just before we moved here. Articles about the millennium virus that never happened and the panic over nothing, over some arbitrary date. It seems that most of the time we are fussing over trivialities, fighting over nonsense and making news out of nothing. How I long for the simple and unparalleled beauty of the ordinary, the peace and happiness of everyday life.

There is a newspaper article from the 1st of January 2000, half a page in the Japanese daily mainichi, with a photograph of us, Mika, Sora and Canaan, me, sitting on the veranda of this house. We had just moved in, and had such great hope for this new century. The hope still burns. It will take more than an earthquake, a tsunami or a nuclear disaster to extinguish that flame.

I spend the day packing boxes, and dusk begins to creep through the windows. It is time for the meeting. I walk to the community hall, the meeting has already begun. There are more people here than other years, the house is packed. Everyone is uncertain of the future, and has come to find support among friends. I kneel in the entry hall.

Announcements are made, assessments of damage, plans for rebuilding, government support. Ichikai has been officially acknowledged as a disaster zone, though it is overshadowed by the tragedy of the north eastern prefectures. The damage in Ichikai alone is estimated at 2,000,000,000 yen.

Discussion ensues about the best course of action to repair the hall in which we now sit. During the proceedings a major after shock strikes. Everyone tenses, a few gasp, all of the faces are filled with fear. The quake subsides.

General business is called, new members of the community are introduced. There is a brief lull in the proceedings. The Kaicho nods to me. I stand and move to the open space at the front of the hall. One hundred and twenty five faces turn to me. I know them all.

"Good evening, " I say. "I am Euan Craig of MaeOhkuboh 3pan." They chorus a response of good evening.

"Like everyone here, my home was also damaged in the earthquake of the 11th of last month. The roof, the back wall of Ohya stone, the bathroom, the kiln, have all been badly damaged. For those of you who did not know, we did not own our home, but rented from a landlord who does not live in this area. When we were able to contact the landord after the power was restored, they indicated that they would not be paying to restore the house to livable conditions."

I take a deep breath, " Even so, I began repairs, but on the 15th, when the nuclear reactors exploded, I realised that I could not protect my children here. We evacuated to my wife's parents home in Minakami, but I could not return until the petrol was available. After discussions with my wife's parents, they have offered to give us some land to start fresh, and if we build there our investment will belong to us."

I look at the faces upturned to me, " For eleven years, you have embraced my family and included us as part of this community, and I am proud to have lived among you. This situation was not of my or anyone's choosing, but I am sad to say that, as of the end of last month, I must leave this community, and my family will be moving permanently to Minakami," my voice begins to quaver. "Thank you all for taking care of us for these 11 years, I have no words to express my sorrow." I bow, deeply, to hide my tears.

125 pair of hands begin to applaud. I leave the floor amid the sound of clapping.

The meeting comes to an end. As the elected officials start to serve plates of sushi and sashimi, trays of cutlets, beer and sake, I find an empty cushion among my friends. They gather around me, filling my glass, asking the details of our move, expressing sorrow that we are leaving, but understanding our decision and affirming its validity. They wish me luck and tell me that I must come back and visit. I promise I will. I will. We eat, we drink, we laugh. Time passes.

As I walk home from the hall, I follow the road rather than cut across the fields. I walk past the pond.

"Benten Ike", the pond of Benten. Curious, isn't it, that the water should bear the same name as the water in Minakami.

There is an Island in the middle of the pond, and a narrow bridge joins the island to the bank. On the Island is a temple to Benten. It has been there for generations, but three years ago, when I was Hancho, the old temple had decayed and was falling down, and so we rebuilt it.

The men of the community volunteered their labour and together we built a new temple. Working side by side, we built good strong concrete foundations, a frame and walls of wood, an iron roof.

I cross the bridge. The temple stands undamaged on it's island, unaffected by the earthquake.

I walk back to the house, cold and empty. The house is just a house. I will miss the people of this town, but I miss my family more. It will take a few more days to pack the rest of the house, but I long for home, and home is not here anymore.

The Long March

2011-04-01T22:37:00.003+09:00

It is April. Mika opens the storm shutters and morning light streams into the bedroom, stinging my eyes and dragging me from my restless sleep. I do not remember all of my dreams, but they are haunted by images of falling masonry, moving ground and searching for the children. Mika strokes my forehead and whispers, "Good morning." She smiles. The dreams fade.

This last week has been hectic. Since our decision to establish ourselves here there has been no down time. A friend found us a 2 tonne truck for two days free use, and I drove back and forth to Mashiko with trepidation. The house needs to be cleared, paperwork put through the town hall, the kiln dismantled and moved, the childrens school affairs transfered...

The drinking water in Kasama, next to Mashiko, was deemed unsafe for children because of radiation. The list of produce unfit for human consumption grows. The nuclear reactors are not under control, though radiactivity is now leaking into the sea water rather than the atmosphere they say. The levels in the sea water are increasing. They say it will take weeks to get it under control. They say it will take months to seal the plant down. They say there is no immediate danger. They say lots of things. I suspect that they don't know. Neither do I.

We have moved a great deal of our things here now, most of the kitchen equipment, the dining table and chairs. It is difficult moving home when there is no empty home to move to. We are squeezing our belongings into corners, and what overflows I am storing in the hot house on the Sukawa field. I spent two days clearing the south half of the hot house, laying out palettes to keep our things high and dry till we have built our own storage. My brother in law's kitchen is looking like mine.

We have vegemite on home baked bread this morning. A taste of home. With all of us and Mika's parents and brother, we now prepare meals for a family of nine. The children set the table, we sit down together.

Putting our hands together we chorus, "Itadakimasu", the Japanese "Grace", we are grateful to receive this food.

It is good that I can now bake bread, as there are still days when there is none in the supermarket. Today there was no milk. Eggs are rationed, strangely there is no yoghurt...I don't know why that bothers me, it seems such an odd thing to be in shortage. Each day as I walk around the supermarket I check the labels to see where the produce originated. I am wary of contamination, albeit "within safe levels", and prefer fresh foods from Hokkaido or Shizuoka, as far afield as possible. Mika's Uncles have brought us vegetables from their own farms, near us here in the mountains. Our friends in Ichikai were relieved when their strawberries tested safe for radiation, and brought us two punnets while we were moving. Until now my concern has been to give my family a wide, varied and healthy diet...Now I pray only that it is safe.

The phone rings. It is the gallery from Utsunomiya calling to cancel my exhibition which was scheduled to begin on April 21st. There are no customers. Perhaps later in the year when things have settled down? "We look forward to exhibiting your new work." So do I. Till then there is a kiln shed, studio and kiln to build and a family to feed. I thank them for their efforts, I know that they are doing their best too. I hang up the phone.

Mika and I go to the local town office to register our new address. The other day we registered our move from Ichikai with the town office there. We fill in the forms, they check my Alien Card, we transfer the childrens school records. The papers are stamped, we are now citizens of Minakami.

The schools are close, and have either been recently rebuilt or reinforced to make them earthquake safe. The teaching staff are friendly and relaxed, understanding of the situation we are in and I believe they will be supportive of the children while they come to terms with their new lives. While we are at the high school it starts to rain. Whoever thought I would be scared of rain? But I remind myself that the prevailing winds come from the west, it's OK...it's ok..

Two letters await us when we arrive home. One is from the Ichikai town office telling us our house there is officially uninhabitable. It is reassuring to know that we didn't over react after all. The other is the quote from the builder. A simple square shed, 7.2 meters on each side, a half slab of reinforced concrete for under the seven tonne kiln, wooden frame and corrugated iron roof. No walls, windows or fixtures at this stage. Just foundation, frames and roof, everything else I will do myself as materials come to hand. 1,310,000 yen, give or take. It's only the first quote. We file the letters for later.

After lunch Isaka san from Gallery St Ives in Tokyo phones. He has organised a five person exhibition in Tokyo of Mashiko potters affected by the earthquake, and a percentage of the sales will go to help the rebuilding fund. Ken Matsuzaki, Tomoo Hamada, Minoru Suzuki, Yuchiko Baba and me. It will start on April 16th. Can I provide him with 50 pieces at such short notice? It just so happens that I can. More if he needs them...

Mika's cousin visit's, her three daughters will be going to the same school as the boys, she can also lend us the uniform for Seans preschool...

The stars are bright in a clear sky this evening as I walk with my family to the local hot spring. It is perhaps ten minutes walk, and only the residents of this district can use it. A priveledge we can now claim. Down the hill in the dark, the children giggling, the scuff of our shoes on the gravel.

Up here in the mountains the stars do not have to compete with city lights, and they twinkle merrily in the cold black sky.

The "Onsen" is little more than a shed, divided down the middle into men's and lady's. There is a small changing room on each side, and an honesty box in which to place 100 yen for the upkeep of the facilities.

The boys and I go through the sliding doors into the steamy bathroom, a faint sulfurous fragrance in the air. The bath itself, a four inch thick wooden box into which the hot spring water flows continuously from a pipe, is currently occupied by three old men. They stare at us curiously as we greet them, but as we scoop bowls of water from the bath and wash ourselves I explain who we are and before long we are chatting like old friends.

One of them grows cherries, the ones that Mika's mother sends to us each year, and he knows all about us from her. Another is the owner of the general store, apparently a distant relative.

The water is gaspingly hot as we sink into the tub, and I feel the tension leeching out of me into the water. We are not alone, though sometimes it feels that way, and with the help and support of family and friends we will come through this.

I walk behind Mika and the children as we make our way back home. Sean sets the pace, we all match in with him, we all stay together.

Tomorrow morning, very early, I will go back to the house in Ichikai to say my final farewells to the community there, who accepted me so warmly into their midst, and to pack up what remains for the final move.

It has been a long march from the housing commission estates of Broadmeadows in Melbourne to the mountains of Minakami in Japan, and fortunes seem to change with the wind. But I am not alone, and wither so ever the winds of fortune may blow, I will persevere.

I am a potter, and a potters strength lies in their ability to remain steady. Yes, the march has been long, but this last month has been the longest March of all. I am glad it is April.

Equinox

2011-03-22T22:43:00.016+09:00

I look out the window as I wash the dishes. The rain has washed the snow away, though the majestic peaks of the Mikuni Alps rise white amid the drifting clouds. Ten days have past since the earthquake stuck, a week since the explosions in the third and fourth nuclear reactors which led us to evacuate here.

Over the past few days the struggle to control the reactors seems to be winning, and the radiation level seems to be falling day by day. Each day, however, there is new news of contamination, ever more widely spread. First the drinking water in Fukushima, then the surrounding prefectures, Tochigi and Tokyo. Milk from Fukushima is contaminated, and Spinach from Ibaraki. The next day vegetables from Mibu in Tochigi, further from the reactors than Mashiko. The ocean around fukushima, the rain across the Kanto plain. Beans from Kagoshima that were contaminated while going through Narita airport on their way to Taiwan...

　　　　 The government spokesman and the experts tell us it is many times greater than the accepted limits, but still safe for human consumption. It does not inspire confidence, and I am glad we are here. I have checked the sites that some of you have recommended, the radiation levels in the air, the water, the rain. The Internet was made for times like this.

The relief work for those suffering in the earthquake and tsunami hit areas continues, and though supplies of heating oil and fresh water are still lacking in some areas, the roads are clearer. Supplies are getting through. People are being evacuated to safer areas in other prefectures to the west and south. Petrol is back to normal in Tokyo, I hear, but there is still none here. Milk and bread are hard to get here now. Maybe tomorrow. It will be a long road to recovery.

The rain has stopped and the sky is clear. I take Sora for a walk before dark. We talk as we walk up the steep hill behind the village hall, forest to right and left. We have had long family discussions over the last few days, trying to find a way forward. The house in Ichikai is unlivable as it is, to repair it would cost a great deal in time and money, and in the end it will still not be ours. The kiln needs to be rebuilt. There are still aftershocks and the risk of more earthquakes. There is still radioactivity, though less than before, and the reactors are still not completely under control. We cannot go back, we must find a way forward.

Sora and I crest the hill, walking past Mika's father's blue berry field. Last Summer we all came and helped him harvest them, though there were probably as many eaten as went into the baskets! I found some in his freezer yesterday and made blueberry jam last night. This morning we had it with yoghurt on drop scones for breakfast. The branches are bare now, but there is a hint of spring in the air.

Many of my family and friends in Australia want us to move there. Admittedly, there are no nuclear power plants in Australia, and I know that everyone would rally around us. I miss the sound of Magpies in the morning, the fragrance of the gum trees. I could start from scratch, Mika would be fine, but it is not just us. My children are in the midst of their schooling, and though it would not be impossible for them, it would be very difficult. Particularly after the trauma of the earthquake. I also remember how hard it is to make a living as a potter there, and I hear that things have not changed. Could I support a family of six?

We cross a bridge over a deep gully. From here we can see over the village and the valley below. The mountains march off into the distance. Across the bridge there is an orchard with an electric fence around it to keep the monkeys out. It has been good to watch the children with their grand parents, playing "Shogi" (Japanese Chess) with grandad ("Jichan") or listening to "Bachan's" (Grandma's) stories. My father passed away many years ago, well before I came to Japan, and my mother the year before Sean was born. It would have been nice for the children to have spent more time with her.....

We walk across the fields of Sukawa Daira, beside the Temple of Daikoku. We stop at a field, perhaps a quarter acre, which has a large plastic hot house. This field belongs to Mika's parents, and until recently was used for growing "Konyaku" potatoes. The hot house is full of the timber from the old shed where Mika's brother built his house, the house in which we now take refuge. They have offered us this land to build a new studio, a new home. We have accepted.

I will not return to Mashiko or Ichikai, though they have been my home for 21 years. I will not return to Australia, though I miss it sometimes. I will stay here. Where the earth is solid and the air is clear. Where there is pure spring water to drink and hot springs to relax in after a long, hard day. Where the children can spend time with their grandparents, and pick blue berries and grow vegetables. Here, where it is safe.

The studio and kiln shed will need to be built first. Then I can start working again. A house will have to wait, but we can stay with Mika's family till then. I have spoken to a local builder, and we are waiting for some quotes. I will do as much of the work as I can myself, to keep the cost down, and help the builders do the bits I can't do myself. Once the shell of the studio is built I can move my wheel and tools here, dismantle the old kiln and rebuild it here.

People from all around the world are raising money to help rebuild Mashiko, and it is heart warming to see the ceramic community pull together like this. The Leach Pottery in the UK and the Ceramics Council in the USA are accepting donations to be sent to the Mashiko Potters Fund, an NPO created to help the potters in Mashiko rebuild after the earthquake. Mashiko will be rebuilt, but, alas, I will not be a part of it.

Sora and I walk home, back down the hill by a different path. The full moon rises huge and orange over the jagged horizon and dusk begins to fall. We stop at the general store on the way past and buy a litre of milk. It has been rationed here to one per family, which for us at the moment is nine.

Light is spilling from the kitchen window as we arrive home. Canaan hugs me in the hall way.

He turns his face up to mine and says, "We're all really happy, Dad."

I smile and kiss him on the forehead. "Yes, son, I believe we are."

I will make my own path forward, with my family. I thank you all for your kindness and encouragement, and I look forward to sharing this journey with you.

You can always contact me by email at ; euan.craig@gmail.com

And if you wish to find me, or visit me, I will be here;

Euan Craig,

C/O Shimazaki,

362-4 Fuse,

Minakami-machi,

Tone-gun,

Gunma-ken 379-1414

JAPAN

God bless and keep you all.

One step at a time

2011-03-17T23:17:00.007+09:00

Snow blankets the world as I rise this morning. It has been snowing since yesterday, and I am so glad that we made it through the mountains before the blizzard began. I have been trying to catch my breath, watching the battle with the nuclear reactors on the television, getting my feet back on the ground. There seems to be no improvement in the situation in Fukushima, I do not know what we are going to do, I am in limbo. I gave the children a new note book each yesterday, and a new pen.

"This is for you to write down or draw about the things that have happened over the last few days, so you don't forget." I tell them.

The bigger children write, just the nuts and bolts at first, what happened and when. Little by little they fill in the gaps with how they felt, a few illustrations.

Sean draws pictures.

"This is me coming out of the pre-school door, and the verandah moving and me falling over." he explains.
"Did it hurt when you fell?" I ask.
"No, but it was really scary, and the lights were all swinging and we had to rush outside in case they fell down. And this is the window of the old peoples day care next door, all broken in little bits. These are the cracks going zig zag through the playground, and this is the water in the pool going KERSPLASH! over the edges."

His pictures start in black and white, hard lines and jagged edges. He draws a building, with rolling black scribble inside, then hunts for a red crayon from his bag and adds sharp angled lines. "This is that house blowing up!"

"The one on the tele?" I ask.

"Yes, that one." The reactor....

He draws a big picture of Mummy with her arms out wide. He draws the computer keyboard in brown. He draws all our faces framed on the computer screen in blue. He draws a light green dog...then another green dog.

I watch the children play hide and seek upstairs and downstairs in their uncles house, giggling, jumping out and surprising each other, squabbling over cards. This house that is our temporary home. It was built just a couple of years ago, simple, sturdy and with sound foundations. Beside it is the old family house, where Mikas parents live. The family have been here for four generations. The bedrock is very stable here, they tell me, and since we came I have not felt a single tremor, though the TV shows them all the time. Another level 3 in Mashiko, a level four in Ichikai, 5.6 off the coast of Ibaraki....but Minakami is still and quiet in the snow.

Down the path behind the house, beside the bamboo grove, along the edge of the rice feilds. I just need some fresh air. It was a low of -6C overnight, and a top of -1C today. The rice paddies spread white between the hill and the river. Icicles hang from the leaves of the bamboo. Below the house is a natural spring, "Benten no mizu" they call it, "Benten's Water". Benten is the goddess of wisdom and art, and this spring feeds pure water into the rice fields when summer comes. The water is so pure a small bottling company has set up next door and markets the water through local ski resorts under the brand name "Sekkasui".

There are many hot springs and ski resorts in Minakami, and most of the hotels and hostels are fairly empty at the moment. Mika's brother is on the local council, and they decided yesterday to allocate 100,000,000 yen to provide food and accomodation for a thousand evacuees from Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima in the empty hostels. Many of them will have lost their homes, their families, and many of them will feel lost themselves. It will take a very long time to recover.

I walk to the path beside the river, and each step I take, my left boot creaks. It is not an unpleasant sound, rather like a small frog. I have checked; there is no frog. I walk to the highway, across the bridge, the snow flakes streaming past on the icy wind from the north west, a wind that will blow the Fukushima fallout out to sea. For the moment at least. There is little traffic on the road, there is no petrol.

I reach the local Supermarket, business as usual. In Mashiko the supermarkets were closed, and the convenience store shelves were bare of bread or rice or noodles or canned foods or milk or...Perhaps it is better now?

The television tells us that people in Tokyo are hoarding. The minister for internal affairs begs them not to. In Minakami, the supermarket is well stocked, there is no crowded queue, all is calm. Last decades Pop songs play quietly in the background. My heart is in turmoil, I do not know what to do. I was interviewed by phone from Australia today, radio and television. They want to know what I think I will do. Will I return to Australia? Will I rebuild in Mashiko? What do I think of the nuclear disaster...? I do not know, I have lived in Tochigi prefecture for 21 years, longer than I lived in Melbourne, or Bendigo, or Swan Hill...Japan is my home. But what can I do to rebuild a life that is safe for my family when the reactors burn unchecked? The brave souls battling the reactors are sacrificing so much to try to save other lives, three hundred thousand people are evacuated in the freezing snow, many without proper food or fresh water or heating. I walk around the supermarket, Aubergines are cheap. There is a red capsicum at half price. Some pasta, a few cans of tomatoes. There is no queue at the register, the lady gives me my change. I go to the table to pack my groceries in the bag. There is a box for donations for earthquake relief... I look at the change in my hand... I think of my children... I put the change away in my pocket and walk out of the supermarket with my groceries.

As I walk home to cook dinner for my family, snow flurries around me. Each step I take, my boot creaks. It is the sond of me going home to my family, for wherever they are, that is home. It is the sound of moving forward, one step at a time.

Nothing to fear

2011-03-15T21:04:00.009+09:00

The night seems long, the earthquakes and aftershocks continue. Outside in the dark a pheasant shrieks, and I rise in my bed, alert and waiting. A low rumble begins, the windows begin to rattle. I jump out of bed, ready to get the children outside if the need arises. The shuddering peaks and subsides in visceral waves and the night returns to silence. I return to my bed for the, I don't know how many times, and close my eyes in pursuit of sleep. I rise with the sun this morning, there is much to do.

The primary school will resume today, so I get Rohan and Canaan up, get them breakfast cereal and cook a large pot of rice. The last few days have been spent cleaning up. First on the agenda is patching the roof before it rains. I spent all of yesterday patching the roof, first removing the broken sections, then re-laying them with recycled clay in place of the original adobe. We tied tar paper over one section as a stop gap measure (literally!) and I managed to get one and a third maybe of the remaining patched before dark. We have been leasing this house for the last 11 years, the land lord lives south of Tokyo and is unaffected by the quake. We managed to contact her on Sunday. She was not insured. "You should have bought the place," she says blithely, "then you could have insured it yourself. Do you want to buy it now?" Sometimes, even I despair. There will be no help from there. What needs to be done, I will do myself, for my family's sake. We cleaned up the bathroom as much as we could, but it will need to be completely rebuilt. We put boards on the floor so the kids won't cut their feet on the broken tiles, and squat them in the bottom of the bath, avoiding the shattered walls, bathe them with buckets of warm water from the wood stove and get them out and dry before the cold wind through the broken walls can chill them. Around us the community rallies, helping each other as best they can, striving to return to normalcy. So today I walk the children to school at 7:15. I wave them a cheerful farewell at the school gate, turn my back and walk away, my heart in my throat, tears in my eyes. They need to return to school, I tell myself, they need to be with their friends. They need me to be strong. I breathe deeply as I cross the rail line, walk past houses with tarpaulins on the roof, greet neighbours walking their dogs.

When I arrive home, Mika and Sora are on the front porch. A family of pheasants is in the front yard, the male dancing a mating ritual, spreading his tail feathers, strutting his stuff. We watch for a while, the lustrous blue of the male, the tawny brown of the hen, the green of the bamboo. Life goes on. We go inside and leave them in peace.

I decide to check the email before I start on the roof, while I have a cup of coffee. Mika turns on the TV. The stock market report is on, Japanese stocks have fallen. I wonder that the world is still full of people whose prime concern is profit margins. It is 8:30. My friend from Nagano emailed me last night. He studied nuclear physics at Oxford. "Evacuate!" he says, "If the third reactor explodes there'll be massive fallout. Come to Nagano and stay with us. If you hurry, you can get here while the roads are still clear!" I turn to the television news, the third reactor explodes before my eyes. I meet Mika's terrified face. The explosion happened 2 hours ago! The news has just come up! The Nuclear Power Plant is 110 km from us, there is still time. I run outside and get in the car, rush to the school and park in the playground. The children are gathering in the gym. Rohans teacher is there. I explain the situation, Canaans teacher joins us, I tell them that I am taking my boys and staying indoors for the moment, but that we may evacuate. They call the boys, who then rush to gather their things. While I wait for them, I see the principal and explain to him also. The boys are ready, I drive them home.

The TV says "Within 20 km of the nuclear site, stay indoors, seal all windows, do not use air conditioners or exhaust fans....." The weather man says " A strong wind is blowing to the south, south west...it will rain this afternoon....it will snow tomorrow..." I look at our broken windows, the damaged roof, the gaping holes in the bathroom and studio....what if the fallout reaches here? How can I protect my family? It is not our house, home though it may be, and the land lord doesn't care.... Mika's brother has phoned, "Come home to Gunma, it's safe from the fallout here!" he says. We check the maps. Mika's family live in Minakami, my friends are in Komoro. Which is better? Minakami is 200km from the power plant, Komoro is 255km, both are on the other side of the mountains, but family.....they have food and spring water, plenty of space, and it is familiar ground. We choose home. We phone our neighbours who have children with ours at school, tell them we are evacuating, ask if they will come...but their family is all here, they choose to stay. I pray that they are right. I hope that we are wrong. At 11:00 the prime minister and minister for internal affairs give a press conference. They are evacuating everyone with 20km of the reactors, everyone between 20 and 30km should stay indoors. Packing bare essentials into the car we grab some lunch, make rice balls for the journey and leave. I drive away from Mashiko, from Ichikai, with fear and sorrow. I cannot save them, I can only save my family. I hope it not too late. On the way through Utsunomiya we see factories devastated by the earthquake, home centres and shopping centres, facades collapsed and debris still scattered in the car park. The road has cracks and fissures that shock the car as we drive over them, unaware until we feel the jolt. There are people on house rooves trying to effect repairs. Debris still lines many streets. We stop at a bank and withdraw some cash. The left hand lane is traffic jammed for 2km, but the right hand lane is clear. I realise that it is a queue for a petrol station. There is no petrol. Luckily I filled the tank the day before the earthquake!

We take the highway towards Nikko, the traffic is sparse, and gaps and fissures in the road have been freshly patch with asphalt. The children scream with excitement as we see a wild boar foraging on the side of the road. Life goes on. We leave the highway at Kiyotaki, stopping at a convenience store for some supplies and, well, convenience. "How was the earthquake here?" we ask.

"About 5, things fell off some shelves, but we were OK." they say.

"Mashiko was 6.6. Take care." We bid them farewell.

The Road to Gunma takes us through Ashio. The Mountains are steep on each side, barren for the most part. There were copper mines here for centuries, and the mountains have been raped. In recent years there has been a national effort to reforest these mountains. Last spring I came here with Sora and her class mates to plant 124 trees. Slowly the forest is returning.

We stop at a small unmanned railway station for a bladder break, and in the car park the first daffodils are blooming. I pick one for Mika. We drive on.

It is moving towards dusk as we drive through Mizunuma, and the traffic light are all off due to the rolling blackouts. The plums trees in the school playground are in full bloom. Life goes on.

We turn onto route 62, patches of snow at the sides of the road. The misty rain blurs the windscreen. Barren trees stand like dark sentinels on the snowy ground. There are no cars, except for us. We have driven through many tunnels through the mountains, half fearful for earthquakes, half grateful for shelter from possible fallout. The clouded drizzling night is black now, save for the pools of light from our headlights.

As the road twists out of a ravine we see the lights of Numata below us. We are through the mountains, we are in Gunma, we are safe. Relief rises in my chest. Not far now, not far now. We turn onto route 17, one more turn and we'll be there. Almost there. It is 7:00pm as we pull into the drive way. Mikas mum is waiting for us with hot soup and noodles. There is a shower waiting for us, a warm bed, a safe roof, secure shutters to keep out the invisible fallout. The wind from Fukushima does not blow here. I do not know what will happen tomorrow, we seem to have survived today. I do not know if this was the right course of action, or if I am a fool. The next few days will tell. I only know that I must protect my family. Earthquakes, tidal waves, these are acts of nature. We can see them, we can build our homes on higher ground, build them sturdier, we can learn. But I cannot protect against an invisible poison that floats on the breeze from four burning nuclear reactors. Man has done this, for power, for profit. I cannot protect my loved ones from a deadly nothing that irresponsible humans have unleashed, bottled in concrete vessels on the beach in an earthquake zone. I cannot defend against this lethal nothing, and it is the nothing that I fear.

WE ARE SAFE

2011-03-12T21:50:00.007+09:00

We are safe. My heart goes out to the many who are not. Aftershocks still shake our home, but we have food and emergency water...as I write the house shudders once again...the power returned late this afternoon and I can contact you and let you know that we are safe.

Yesterday afternoon I was in the studio putting handles on some vessels, when the floor shifted under my feet as if I were riding a train. The house began to rattle and shake, pots began to fall from the shelves and the vibration became a roar. I opened the door and rushed outside, turning back to look at the house as I went. It was swaying, like bamboo in the wind. I turned to see the kiln chimney swing left and right, somehow not collapsing but widening cracks appearing up its length. When the roof tiles came sliding off the roof I began to run; the children were at school.

I ran the seven hundred yards to the primary school, the children were already in the middle of the...the house shakes again as I write...play ground, the teachers herding them to safety. The children are crying and... my god that is another earthquake...it's OK, we thought we might need to get the kids out of their beds...that wasn't an after shock, that was another earthquake...the teachers were trying to contact people on their mobiles but there was no service. I can see Canaan and Rohan, they are safe. The ground is still moving like a raft, the teachers tell me parts of the ceiling have fallen in the school but the children and staff are all evacuated accounted for and safe. Rohan's teacher has a son at the pre school with Sean, I tell her I am going there and tell the boys to stay with their teachers. I run.

The pre school is a kilometer and a half further away. As I run down the road I see other houses with rooves gone, stone walls strewn across the road, stone storage houses collapsing. I was crying...I am crying now... past the police station, past the aged home where the staff are wheeling invalids out into the car park, I jump the fence and there is Sean in the play ground with all his friends. The teachers comfort them, the children cry, I hug Sean as he bravely wipes the tears from his little face. I talk to his teacher, the preschool is new and there seems to be no damage, the cell phones don't work. I tell her the primary children are all safe. Sora is still at the junior High, three quarters of a kilometer up the hill. I tell Sean to stay with his friends, I tell him to look after his teacher while I go to check on Sora. I run.

Roofing tiles are scattered across the road, the metal railing on the curb is twisted, there are cracks appearing across the road, a tree falls. As I reach the back gate of the school I can see Sora's teacher crossing towards the music room. I call out his name, he sees me and raises his arms to form a circle above his head; Sora is safe. Beyond the gate, across the playing fields, the students are sitting on the ground, the teacher giving them instructions. Many of the children are crying. The teachers tell me the ceilings have come down in the high school too, but the students and staff are all accounted for and safe. They can't contact anyone, they ask me if the damage is worse at the high school because it is at the top of the hill, I tell them it's the same all over, but the pre school and primary school are all safe and unharmed. I hug Sora. The ground moves again, I can see the clock tower swinging back and forth...another aftershock, will they never stop?...again, bigger...has it stopped? I'm not sure... I tell Sora to stay with her teacher also, as I don't know whether it's safe to go home. I retrace my steps, back to the preschool, tell them the High school kids are safe, hug Sean again, borrow the teachers cell phone and try to phone Mika. There is no service. Mika is in Mashiko at the museum where she now works. I can only pray.

I leave Sean with his teacher once again and return to the primary school. I tell Rohans teacher that her son, all the pre school and high school kids are safe. I see the relief on her face. Parents are coming to the school now, taking their children home. Some houses are untouched. I take Canaan and Rohan...another aftershock... and we walk to the preschool. Rohan forgot to grab his safety helmet and Canaan has given him his own...yet another...I praise him for protecting his little brother. I hug them both. I leave the boys at the pre school with Sean, and go to get Sora. One of the mothers of the children's school mates picks us up in her van and we get the boys and return home.

The house and kiln are still standing. A cold wind is chilling the children. I set up a tin stove in the back yard and go inside the house alone to get the kids ski ware. The inside of the house is a mess of broken pottery and glass. Sora looks after the boys outside while I assess the damage. No power, no water, no phone. The roof is a shambles, the back wall of the studio and house is shattered but still standing, the bathroom is a disaster. I get the kids a warm drink and some snacks, then start to clean up inside before it gets too dark. As dusk approaches Mika arrives home. Mashiko was hit hard too, the museum and many houses. All the climbing kilns are damaged but there seem to be no casualties. There was a bus of American tourist at the museum when the earthquake hit and she couldn't leave until they were safe. We are all in tears as we hug. We are safe. We are home.

We get the house functional, I rejoin the stove chimneys and we get the house warm. We break out the emergency water supplies and I get a hot meal on the table by candle light. We send the kids to bed in their clothes, just in case we need to evacuate in the middle of the night. Aftershocks continue, sometimes minutes apart, sometimes half an hour. As we listen to the radio a picture of how wide the devastation is, and how lucky we have been, begins to form.

After a sleepless night, we face a new day. The town is providing emergency water and food at the town hall. Friends come to share what they have, we clean up as best we can and go to help others. We finally contact Mika's family, they are safe.

Houses can be repaired or rebuilt, kilns too. Pottery can be replaced, remade. Stuff doesn't really matter. We'll manage somehow. My family, my loved ones, are safe and sound. They sleep in the next room as I write this to you. I thank God. We are the lucky ones, and my heart and prayers go out to those who are not.

HINA MATSURI

2011-03-03T12:24:00.004+09:00

When Sora was born, Mika's parents gave us a set of dolls for her. Not the sort she would pretend to have morning tea with, but a set of "Hina Ningyou" (雛人形) to pray for her health and happiness throughout life. At the end of every february we set up the dolls, with a small tray of sweets as an offering. Today, March 3rd is the actual celebration, and it is traditional to have "Chirashi Zushi" for our meal this evening. Originally, this celebration coincided with the peach blossom season, which in the old Japanese calendar was the 3rd day of the 3rd month (弥生 yayoi) but is actually the 3rd of April in the modern calendar. However, when the modern calendar was introduced on January 1st, 1871 (Meiji 6), Hina Matsuri (the doll festival) was observed on the same numerical date, but actually a month earlier. It is therefore considered bad luck for the dolls to remain on display after April 4th. Many families in this area put the dolls away tonight, but it is Mika's family tradition for them to be on display till March 8th, though the reason is a mystery!

Feet of Clay

2011-02-18T08:16:00.004+09:00

When firing a wood kiln, or salt or soda, one of the challenges is preventing the feet of the vessels from sticking to the shelves. In any of these firings the atmosphere in the kiln is full of glass making materials, either as fine particles of ash or gaseous sodium trying to flux any free silica in the clay to a liquid glaze. In fact, that is our objective, and by allowing this flow of glass making materials to wash over our vessels we invite nature to glaze and decorate our work for us. It is difficult to be selective, however, about where those gases or particles flow without sacrificing the spontaneity of the glaze effect on the whole vessel. If the liquid glass flows down to the foot of the vessel, then when it cools the foot will be stuck to the kiln shelf by solid glass. This is difficult to remove without chipping the piece or damaging the kiln shelf, and such losses can become quite expensive.

There are several ways of addressing this challenge and I employ two methods in my kiln, depending on where the pots are to be placed. The first is to try to prevent the pots from sticking. My first step in this process is to design my feet so that there is a minimum amount of surface area in contact with the kiln shelf. The foot ring itself is trimmed with a chamfer on each edge so that only a thinly angled line touches the shelf. This also creates a slight overhang to help prevent fly ash from getting under the foot. When the vessel is removed from the kiln the foot ring can be touched up with some sand paper and "Viola!", a nice smooth foot ring. When I am waxing the feet of some vessels before glazing, on plates for example, I use a special wax mixture of candle wax, kerosene and a handful of alumina powder. The wax burns off in the kiln, leaving a very fine residue of alumina between the vessel and the kiln shelf. Alumina (Al2O3) is a highly refractory material, the melting point of which is about 2040C, and so it remains as a dry powder even at glaze firing temperatures, and will serve the same purpose as flour on the work bench when you are making pastry or bread, preventing sticking. Following the same train of thought, Alumina is used as a coating on kiln shelves and kiln furniture to prevent sticking, just as flour is used on the inside of a cake tin. On its own, however, alumina floats around as a powder and can stick to glaze surfaces making them matte and unattractive, so a coating mixture containing some clay material as a fixative is necessary. The mixture which I use is Alumina 2: Kaolin 1 proportionately by weight, mixed with enough water to make is a pourable creamy consistency. I put this into a watering can and pour it over the surface of the kiln shelves, then put them out in the sun to dry. After every firing I scrape any accumulated ash or soda deposits off the kiln shelves, so that they are ready to be coated again for the next firing. It is important to use a dust mask and eye protection during this process! The materials are all non toxic, but inhaling dust can cause lung disease, and chips of broken glass in the eyes should be avoided at all costs!

My other approach to this challenge is to accept that a wood or soda firing is what it is. There is going to be ash and glass dripping of the pots, and it's going to leave marks. If you are trying to avoid that and it happens by accident it can leave nasty scars on the pots. If, however, you accept it and allow it to happen as a part of the total design, those marks become cicatrices, like tribal scars, and a beautiful expression of the firing process in the finished work.

I do not use wad mix directly on the clay, as that goes in the nasty scar basket. Instead I use a ball of fire clay, rolled in alumina, stuffed inside a sea shell. A set of three, or sometimes more, of these will form a stand on which the vessel can be placed, raising it off the kiln shelf. When the kiln is fired, the salt in the shell will volatilize off leaving flashing marks on the clay. The Calcium Carbonate (CaCO3) in the shell will lose Carbon Dioxide (CO2) and become Calcium Oxide (CaO), still retaining its original structure between the vessel and the fire clay. Any glaze, ash or soda will flow into the shell structure. When the vessel is removed from the kiln and placed in a bucket of water, the Calcium Oxide (Quick lime) will rehydrate to become Calcium Hydroxide (Ca(OH)2 or Slaked Lime), and will just wash off the vessel leaving a fossil like cicatrix where it was in contact with the surface. The slaked lime goes on the compost heap. A touch up of the sharp edges left on the glaze deposit with some sand paper, and Robert is your fathers brother! This is the method I use at the fire face, where the forces of nature are most energetic and capricious. I described this process and my feelings about it in my "Art for Eternity" entry, and I invite you to read that by all means. The greatest challenge for a potter, however, is knowing when to take control, and knowing when to surrender it. It is this balance, this dance with the elements, that creates such beauty, that gives great joy to the user of these vessels, and makes being a potter such a fulfilling career.

Fire & Snow

2011-02-11T10:07:00.013+09:00

The grey winter light filters softly through the bedroom windows as I emerge reluctantly from my warm cocoon. It is Sunday, so there is no need for Mika and the kids to surface yet. I quietly don the work clothes I put on the chair beside the bed last night, the touch of the fabric cold against my skin. I walk through the children’s room to the studio, change into my heavy work boots and step through the studio doors into the stinging cold. My boots crunch across the snowy ground as I walk to the kiln shed, the snow flakes whispering as they fall. My breath billows in clouds of vapour and forms droplets of condensation on my moustache. The clock on the shelf says 7:30 am. The pyrometer display tells me it is -16C. I hope it is wrong.

The sulphurous smell of the freshly struck match is quickly replaced by the fragrance of burning spruce as I set light to the fronds and kindling I arranged in the dual fire mouths of the kiln last night. The fire crackles as the flame climbs hungrily from twig to branch, and when it is burning well I check the top of the chimney to make sure the fire is being drawn through the kiln properly. When the first of the wood starts to crumble into embers I place five pieces of wood, cross hatched, in each fire box. Twenty minutes have passed since I lit the kiln, the pyro reads 15C. Satisfied, I return to the house to light the kitchen stove and start cooking breakfast.

The wood stove heats up quickly, warming the kitchen and living room, and the family emerges one by one. One must never waste a hot oven, especially on a cold snowy day, so I make batch of scones. Every twenty minutes I go out to stoke the kiln, and by the time the scones are cooked the kiln and the oven are both reading 180c. Scones with lashings of blueberry jam and cream, cappuccino for Mika and me, warm milk and honey for the kids. I leave the washing up to the family and go out to tend the kiln.

The snow has stopped falling, the fire in the kiln pops and crackles, the rest of the world is still and hushed. The plum trees in the garden are just beginning to bloom, and the snow decorates the blossoms with crystal mantles. The kiln gets hungrier as it heats up, rising 100C per hour, and the stokes get closer together; every ten minutes, every five..

The tribe comes rushing from the house in full winter regalia, and amid shouts, bursts of laughter and flurries of snow balls, an igloo and a giant snowman arise in the garden. Happy and exhausted, the children return to the house for lunch. The kiln has reached 6ooC, and I begin to stoke on top of the fire grates. Now the firing starts to get busy, climbing three hundred degrees in half an hour. 700... 800... 900C, I adjust the damper and the kiln starts to reduce. Mika sends Sora out with a lunch tray. "Buta-don", simmered pork on rice, with vegetables and miso soup. We drink green tea from Yunomi Chawan as we talk.

The tea is hot, 85C, when it is poured into the Yunomi, and the porcelaineous clay holds the heat well. In the west, we fill our cups with tea or coffee and they are too hot to hold, which is why we invented handles. In Japan, however, a yunomi is used. "Yunomi Chawan" (湯呑茶碗) means "Tea Bowl for Hot Water", and yet it has no handle. It is not used the same way as a "Macha Chawan" (抹茶茶碗), which is for powdered green tea in the tea ceremony. Instead, it is filled from a small tea pot to two thirds, which leaves the top third cool enough to lift between the index finger and thumb. Once lifted, it's foot is rested on the upturned fingers of the left hand, and it is lifted to the lips with both hands.

The Yunomi in this firing are designed with a change of direction at the two third mark, with a concave curve up to the rim which makes it easy to pick up with one hand. The foot is quite high, which protects the hand from the hot hip of the pot, and it's diameter is just nice to fit between the first and third joints of your fingers. Of course, people have different sized hands, and generally men's hands are larger than women's, so two sizes are made. They are called "Me-Oto" (夫婦), which means husband and wife, but the difference in size is for practical purposes, not social discrimination.

Sora sits with me as I fire the kiln, and we talk of many things. I explain to her about the trees using sunlight as energy to split the carbon dioxide in the air into carbon, which becomes the wood, and free oxygen which we need to breath. How, when I burn the wood, the flame releases the carbon and recombines it with oxygen to create energy and heat. How the hot, free carbon flows hungrily through the kiln, dragging oxygen from the materials in the clay, reducing them and changing their structure and colour. How everything in the universe is made of the same atoms, constantly combining, separating and recombining to become all the things around us, and that we are a part of that. That everything that is, always was, and always will be, it is merely changing form throughout eternity.

She is quiet for a while, as the heat of the kiln climbs and flames come blasting from the blow hole at the top of the door, like dragons tongues licking from the depths of the kiln.

"Dad," she says quietly, "What is Death?"

I look at her. "What do you think it is?" I ask.

"I don't know, really, that's why I'm asking you."

"Well," I say, smiling, "I think it's important to think about what life is first. Our bodies and all the atoms in them follow the same rules as the rest of the universe, so when we die, they change and become other things. Our spirit, our self, exists as surely as our bodies, does it not? The you that looks out through your eyes and sees the world and calls it beautiful is as real as the eyes that it looks through, but it cannot be measured. Yet it is, as much and no less as everything else that is, so how can it ever cease to be, if nothing else in the universe does?"

She nods slowly, a look of consideration on her face. The wind picks up and snow begins to fall once more. A flurry of snow flakes swirls into the kiln shed and a single flake sticks briefly to her cheek, before melting and running down to her chin like a tear drop.

I reach out and gently wipe it away. "I believe," I say,"That there is a great and universal spirit that pervades the universe, though we cannot see it nor measure it. It is like water, amorphous and all pervading. But in special circumstances, it crystallises into individual souls, like snow flakes. Every one is different, individual, special, and through all eternity it will never be repeated. For it's brief time it is the most beautiful and perfect crystallisation of the universal spirit, and though it may be surrounded by overwhelming numbers of other flakes, lost in drifts, buffeted by storms, and feels cold and alone sometimes, it partakes of the essence that is life itself and it is never really alone. And when its time is done, it will melt and return to the water from which it came, and flow once again as part of the universal spirit. It may, one day, be part of another snow flake, but the stuff of which it is made has always been and will never not be."

I hug her as the wind begins to buffet the kiln shed. "I believe that death is no more than the melting of a snow flake and it's return to the water from which it came. It is nothing to fear. What is much more important is to revel in the beauty and wonder of that snow flake, for it is unique and the miracle of its existence makes the universe a richer and more beautiful place."

She smiles at me. "Thank you, Dad. I love you."

"I love you, too." I say. "It's getting too cold out here, you'd better go inside."

The firing continues through the dusk and into the dark. Inside the kiln, as the temperature rises to 1300C, the minerals in the wood ash flying with the flames through the kiln melt into glass, and the yunomi change, vitrify, and become something new. When I open the kiln I will discover beauty that I have not made, that I have not seen before, but which has been born of the forces of nature, each vessel a new and individual expression of the beauty of nature. I feed the kiln, I listen to it and watch the flame, and I wait.

The cones are down, I believe the firing is done. I wait for it to cool to 1100C before stoking one last bundle of wood in each fire mouth and sealing the kiln. The snow has gone, the sky is clear, a crescent moon smiles down at me and the world shines in the darkness. The snow creaks beneath my feet as I go home for my supper, home in the warmth of my families embrace.

I have never really been a "chronicler" by nature. I find that I now have a lot of experiences, and things that I have learned from them, which I would like to share; And people like you seem to find them of value, which is very encouraging. Thank you.

The experiences go on though, every day, and I find myself with the conundrum of having a lot to write about and no time to write it! No words will ever compare to the actual feel of snow flakes on your skin, the smooth texture of a warm yunomi in your hand, the flavour and fragrance of green tea or the sound of children's laughter in the whispering snow.

Beneath the Masters Gate

2011-01-20T12:33:00.007+09:00

When one becomes a "deshi"(弟子 literally "younger brother-child" but best translated as disciple) to a master potter in Japan, one is said to be beneath his gate (門下となる-monka to naru). I was fortunate to have been deshi to the National Living Treasure, Tatsuzo Shimaoka, when I first came to Japan. It was an experience which I will carry with me all my life. I would like to share with you an essay which I wrote last century (really!) which was first published in the "Studio Potter" magazine in 2001. It will help to put my last blog entry into perspective. The main studio was a rustic affair, the walls made of grey, rough hewn stone to about knee height, then hand cut timber, weathered to the same grey as the stone. Icicles hung like ornaments from the fringe of the thatched roof. I raised the wooden shutters to reveal the paper screen windows, pushed open the heavy wooden door and the paper screen behind it, and entered the gloom within.

Inside the studio was slightly warmer, though only just, as a small kerosene stove had been left on overnight to prevent the pots from freezing. I turned on the larger stove and went to fill the kettle while it primed. Removing the box from the top of the well, I cracked the ice in the top of the hand pump with my knuckle, then heaved upon the handle to free the rest of the ice. The first few gushes of water were brown and rusty, but soon it was running clear and sweet. With the kettle filled I went to remove my hand from the pump, only to find that my glove had frozen to the handle. I peeled it off with a slight tearing sound and went back inside to set the kettle on the stove.

As a deshi, my next job was to sweep the grounds before the workers arrived. The broom was made of hardy rushes and a bamboo handle, not an elegant tool, but sturdy and functional. Beginning with the immediate surrounds of sensei's house I worked my way back through the compound cleaning up any unsightly leaves and clearing the paths of hoarfrost. I'd never seen hoarfrost before I came to Mashiko, as where I come from in Australia, it never got that cold. Millions of ice needles would form a thick, glistening carpet across the barren ground. A sweep of the broom would leave a glittering swathe, like the stroke of an artists brush.

Eventually the workers would arrive, elderly men and their wives, simple folk in simple farming attire. Indeed, they all had farms which they worked in the spring when the ground had thawed. Of the six of them, only one had a drivers licence. They had worked all their lives at Shimaoka's, lived within walking distance of the pottery, and would retire and grow old in Mashiko. Their children’s lives were different, many of them drawn to the bright lights of Tokyo, like most of their generation. Their world was brighter and broader than their parents, but somehow shallow and trite by comparison. The quiet dedication of the old workers was alien to the new world, but as regular and natural as the seasons. They would greet me in the garden as they passed, with a smile and a brief, "Good morning, cold isn't it?" then shuffle off to the studio to gather round the stove till starting time. When I had finished my chores I would join them briefly, then the days work would begin.

At a signal from the foreman, the oldest of the workers, everyone would scatter to their allotted space to perform their daily routines. Fukuyan would start press moulding, perhaps water drippers for calligraphy, perhaps square bottle forms for ikebana. Sabuyan, axe in hand, would make his way to the wood shed and split logs for the next firing. The women would settle themselves into their habitual spots and start trimming the slip inlayed rope decoration. Mitsuyan, the head thrower, Hamada, the other deshi, and I would go to our wheels and set to making whatever of sensei's forms he had assigned to us.

As I had only been at Shimaoka's for a month or so at that time, I was still making green tea cups, the standard shape that all deshi make in their first year. I was given an example piece, which sat on the wheel bench in front of me, and I made that shape until I got it right. There was no deadline. I had been working in potteries for twelve years before I was lucky enough to be introduced to Shimaoka sensei and for the first time in my life the only consideration was quality. I had learnt to throw in Australia with a stop watch beside the wheel. Yet here, speed and quantity were absolutely irrelevant. After a days throwing, first Mitsuyan would carefully scrutinize the work, picking up one, then another, feeling the weight, looking at the shape, checking the wall thickness. Anything that wasn't quite right would be set aside to be remade the following day. After his editing was done, Sensei himself would go through the same process. In the beginning, I was sometimes left with only ten percent of my days work in tact. "Too thick," he would say, "Too thin", or "Too fat". I was often left confused about the correct shape. So I would start again, each day thinking, maybe today, maybe today.

This day was no different. Taking about ten kilo of clay I began to knead, one hundred times this way, one hundred the reverse. When it was ready I threw it on the wheel and prepared to start. The wheel was the simplest design, just a wooden wheel head and a wooden fly wheel balanced on a steel shaft, pushed around by foot. I removed my shoes and socks, avoiding standing on the bare earth floor, and began to rotate the wheel. All the throwers worked in bare feet, mainly for better traction on the fly wheel, but also to save wear on the wood. After the first hour or so the act of constantly kicking got the blood circulating through your feet and it wasn't too bad.

The same applied to your hands. Everyone topped up their water bowls from the kettle that I had put on first thing in the morning, so by the time it got around to me it was empty. I would refill it and replace it on the stove and make do with the water I had. Once I had removed the ice from my bowl it wasn't long before it warmed up, along with the clay, just from the heat of my hands. It was fascinating to watch the tendrils of steam rising off my hands as I formed the pots, spiraling up and then vanishing into thin air. And the air was so dry. The combination of the cold and the dryness, the constant wetting and drying of my hands, cracked the skin on my fingers so that there was nothing I could do without them opening up and bleeding. Still, work had to be done, so I persevered, blood or not, and the pain, like the mist, would eventually fade.

The day was punctuated by tea breaks, morning and afternoon, of green tea and pickled radish, or sometimes rice crackers. Lunch was a tin of salmon, some vinegared rice and seaweed. Conversation round the stove filled the dark emptiness hanging over us in the cavity of the thatched roof. Not a soul spoke English, and occasionally Hamada, who came from the neighbouring prefecture, would translate pieces of Mashiko dialect that I didn't understand into standard Japanese for me. I was never without a dictionary, but much of my Japanese was mastered by studying Kanji scratched in the dirt floor.

Towards the end of day Sensei entered the main studio. His personal studio was separate and slightly newer, and he would work there undisturbed, calling for us when there were pots to move or clay to knead. I treasured those times when I was able to be assisting him in his studio, watching him work, talking with him. He is a man of few words. The atmosphere changed when he entered the room, everyone suddenly self conscious and ready to jump to his requests. Not that he is an overbearing figure, to the contrary, he is a serene and dignified man, and I have never once heard him raise his voice, nor speak in anger. He simply commands respect, with quiet, calm assertion.

He began to examine my tea cups silently, picking them up at random, feeling their balance, holding them up to see their silhouette against the paper screen, then putting them down and going to the next board. I had made eighty cups that day, and when he had finished, eighty remained.

"Good," he said, "next week you may make coffee sets. Mitsuyan will teach you." and with that he left the studio, and the sound of his wooden sandals could be heard moving across the pebbled driveway to the house. I looked over at Mitsuyan, who grinned and said "Good," just as sensei had. Hamada smiled at me and said "Congratulations". That was all. Yet somehow my world had changed. In that moment, I almost felt as if I belonged.

The working day was over, and we turned off the main stove and set the small one for the night. Hamada and I closed the shutters, and the box was replaced on the well. The workers and their wives turned towards their homes in pairs with calls of, "Good night," and, "Thank you for your efforts today".

Indeed, it was night when work finished, and as I closed the door of the studio the darkness was almost complete. I waited there for a moment until my eyes had adjusted, and looked up at the cloudless sky. The stars were pale and sparse, and for a moment I thought of the sea of stars that washes across the night sky of home. With a shiver, perhaps only of cold, I pushed that thought aside and made my way back down the hill to my paper and plywood domicile, another day complete, another frozen night ahead, and tomorrow the ritual would begin again.....

It has been twenty years since I studied at Shimaoka's, but I have remained in Mashiko. I live in an old farm house with my wife and children, and work towards an ideal that was alive at Shimaoka's. My work and my life will never be like his, nor should they be. Shimaoka sensei passed away in 2007 at the age of 88. His work was an expression of the man, and we are different men. But I will carry with me what he taught me for all my days, the beauty of the object springing from the beauty of the process, and quality above all. And the stop watch? I stopped watching years ago.

Far Enough East

2011-01-19T13:08:00.004+09:00

It is quiet in the studio this morning as I throw yunomi. The children are off at their various schools, Mika has gone to work at her new job as assistant to the curator at the Mashiko Museum of Ceramic Art and I have the house to myself. The kettle whispers on the stove and the fire occasionally pops and crackles. Just me and the clay in the pale winter light. As I relax into the rhythm of making these shapes, allowing the amorphous clay to find it's form within the forces at work upon it on the wheel, I remember my first years here in Japan. What was once alien and exotic has become so familiar.

Yesterday I was invited to the elementary school to give the children there a talk about Mashiko Pottery. Next month there will be a follow up seminar with thirty or so teachers from the area, with myself, the head of the Mashiko Tourism Association and the Vice President of the Mashiko Pottery Retailers association heading a panel discussion. Last night I sat opposite the boys at the kitchen table, helping them with their homework. Occasionally I would reach across the table and correct their kanji, upside down. I suddenly realize that in just a few days I will have been in Japan for twenty-one years.

The differences which seemed so significant when I first came here were only superficial after all. The customs and language which bind a race or culture together are only a veneer of commonality that allows them to interact with each other. Beneath that veneer are individuals as diverse in personal values, belief and perspective as in whatever community or family you find yourself in. One needs only to think about how different siblings can be to understand that. Beyond that, however, underpinning our sense of self, is our common humanity. Regardless of race, creed or language, we humans share our need to love and be loved, we all find beauty in the wonder of nature, we are all moved by kindness. We have more in common than we realise most of the time, but we get confused by superficialities. As long as people keep on insisting that there is a difference between East and West, no number of bridges will be enough.

I cut the next Yunomi from the wheel and discover that the ware boards are full, and I have no place to put it. I suppose it must be time for tea. And whether the people who eventually use these cups drink green tea or earl grey, coffee or oolong tea, the hand that holds the cup will be a hand like yours or mine, the lip that drinks from it a lip like the one you love. There are those who romance about the mystic East, but I have discovered that if you go far enough East, you arrive back home.

Merry Christmas

2010-12-24T23:50:00.005+09:00

'Tis the night before Christmas, and all through the house,

Not a creature is stirring......

The children have had their stir of the Christmas pudding, made their wish and gone off to bed, and now the pudding sits steaming on the wood stove, two hours gone, two more to go. While they sleep and dream of Father Christmas the tree lights up the lounge room. We bought this tree as a seedling when we moved to this house, and we bring it inside every Christmas. Before long it will reach the ceiling, and then we shall take it out of its pot and plant it into the ground, and we shall buy a new tree. It has grown with the children, and we all take great pleasure in decorating it every year.

The star atop out tree is not gold, but it is precious to us. I made it when the kids were small, and one day they will tell their children, "You're Da made that!" I am in no hurry for that day to come, because each year my children hunt through the decorations for "Daddy's Star", and the tree is only finished when I put the star in place.

Christmas is not complete without Mika's wreath hanging beside the door. She uses the prunings from our cypress trees, and holly from the local community hall garden (Yes, she even asked permission!).

In the morning, if the children have been good of course, their stockings will be full of presents, the last job for Father Christmas before he goes to bed.

So, whither so ever scattered over the earths broad surface you may be, I wish you a peaceful and blessed Christmas.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

Just My Cup of Tea

2010-11-22T23:56:00.009+09:00

I was sitting with Miyake san in the tea room, enjoying macha from some of my new bowls. This is where my tea ware is really tested, and we have done so every year. Tomorrow we will be having a tea ceremony here with fifteen Japanese guests and we are selecting the bowls today from those which I have in the exhibition. Some are better for summer than this cold autumn day, and some might be better on the lawn under the cherry blossoms in spring, but the choice of bowl is an expression of the tea masters sense, and there are plenty to choose from. As we talk I remember other days in this room, other bowls and conversations. A couple of seasons ago I wrote an essay about such a day, and I share it again with you here, with some photos of this years exhibition.

Just My Cup Of Tea

Sitting in the tea room at the back of the gallery, I listen to the whisper of the water as it simmers in its iron kettle on the charcoal brazier. Its lid is slightly askew, leaving a gap at the edge which stops the water from boiling over. The mid morning light filters through the paper of the shoji screens to softly illuminate the tatami floor.

In the Tokonoma alcove is a bottle shaped vase with a single blossom. “Hidasuki” straw marks circle its neck and drape down the side where the wood flame has hit the porcelain surface. Beside it on the wall is a “kakejiku” scroll. It is a painting from the Edo period of the view of Nihombashi from the street outside. The merchants bustle about between what has now become the Mitsukoshi department store on the left and the Mitsui bank on the right, with the road between them leading up to Edo Castle, now the imperial palace, and Mount Fuji in the background. Usually the kakejiku would be calligraphy, a poem or phrase in Kanji characters, but Miyake san has chosen this painting because it is of where we are, an echo of the past which lives on in the tradition of the tea ceremony. Among the characters bustling in the street scape is a merchant carrying a large chest wrapped in a furoshiki cloth on his back. I joke with Miyake san that this is his great grandfather moving to Nihombashi from Kyoto with the Meiji emperor in 1868.

The writing was on the wall. It said;

“By Appointment to the Imperial Household

Ebiya Art Gallery

Dealers in Tea Ceremony Wares and Antiquities

Since 1672”

On the mat in front of me, on one of my small square plates, is an exquisite “Mame Daifuku”, a cake of sweet bean encased in rice paste. These are from the same shop in Ueno where I first tasted them, and though I have had them from other makers since, none compare with these.

Miyake san enters the room with a tray, his soft white footware brushing gently across the tatami. On the tray are arranged tea bowl (Machawan), tea caddy (Natsume), whisk (Chasen) and bamboo spoon (Chashaku). He bows deeply and then carries them to the space in front of the brazier.

In the back of my mind I can hear my mothers voice, “Take the pot to the kettle, dear, not the kettle to the pot.”

The tea room at Ebiya is unusual in that the brazier is in the back left corner, meaning that many of the actions must be done in mirror image of a normal tea ceremony. “Ki An” is the title of the tea room. It is difficult to translate, as the “Ki” means to return home, and the “An” means tea house. This is especially significant for me. When I came to Japan I had to choose kanji characters for my own name, as stamps, not signatures, were necessary for all legal documents. It meant giving new meaning to my self. The kanji I chose were “Yu” which is glaze, and “An”, the same kanji as the tea room, to which I have returned every year since 1993. This tea room, at the back of the gallery in the centre of Tokyo, is where I sleep during the exhibition, and I prepare my breakfast over the brazier and welcome guests into my home here. This tea room is a home to which I can return.

Removing a cloth from the “Obi” sash of his kimono, unfolding and refolding it, he begins to meticulously clean the tools on the tray. First the natsume, then the chashaku are wiped and replaced on the tray, each movement economical and elegant. The chasen and “chakin” (tea cloth) are removed from the bowl, and he begins to wash it. Setting the lid straight on the kettle he lifts it and pours some hot water into the bowl. After replacing the kettle he lifts the Chasen, examines it, whisks the water, turns the chasen to examine it again, and replaces it on the tray. He then empties the water from the tea bowl into a “Kensui” bowl that he had prepared behind him. The Kensui is taller and wider than a chawan, flared at the top to accept the discarded water. Using the chakin he wipes the bowl dry, four strokes which cover the base of the bowl and spell the word “Iri”, to “put care” into an action.

“Always warm the pot with hot water first, dear, before you make the tea,” says mums melodious voice.

As he lifts the Chashaku, he turns to me with a smile. “Okashi o douzo,” he says, please enjoy your cake. I lift the plate from the floor, cut a piece of the “Daifuku” with my cake blade and place it in my mouth. These are one of my favourite cakes, the soft sweetness of the coarsely ground bean inside playing against the slight springy resistance of the rice paste casing, with just a hint of salt.

Mum used to serve the best scones with lemon curd and cream for morning tea, the savoury flavour of the fresh baked scone, the tartness of the lemon, the saltiness of the butter, the smoothness of the cream…….

As I eat, Miyake san removes the lid from the natsume and spoons out some bright green powdered tea into the bowl with the chashaku, striking it gently but sharply against the edge of the bowl to shake off any clinging powder. Each year he has a special delivery of macha made from the first leaves of the new crop, the “Shincha”. The colour is more vivid than most tea, the fragrance lighter, the flavour sweeter.

There was one brand of tea that Mum insisted on. “All the others taste like the sweepings from the teahouse floor!” she’d say, “Now, one spoon for each person and one for the pot….”

Pouring the water once more into the bowl and replacing the kettle on the brazier, he lifts the chasen and begins to whisk the tea. Making a bridge from rim to rim with the thumb and middle finger of his left hand he vigorously whisks the tea into a foam, finally slowing to a stop and gently lifting the chasen from the bowl. After putting the chasen back on the tray he lifts the bowl with his right hand onto the palm of his left, turns it twice, perhaps a quarter turn each time, until the front of the tea bowl faces me. He reaches out and places it wordlessly on the tatami in front of me.

“Always turn the pot three times in a clockwise direction,” says mum….

“Chodai itashimasu,” (I gratefully receive this) I say as I reach out with my right hand and slide my fingers under the hip of the bowl till I touch the foot, place my thumb on the lip and lift it to the palm of my left hand. The foot fits comfortably between the first and third joints of my fingers, smooth against my skin. I also turn it twice, till the face of the bowl is now towards him and then move the fingers of my right hand to the side of the bowl. After a slight bow, I lift it to my lips. The colour of the green tea against the orange flashing on the wood fired surface lift each other, and the warm fragrant fumes waft across my face. The lingering sweetness in my mouth from the daifuku mingles with the spicy flavour of the tea. There is no other flavour to which it can be likened. It is macha.

I finish the tea and smile in satisfaction as I lower the bowl. The last skerrick of tea runs down into the throwing rings in the centre of the bowl, making a green spiral against the flashed porcelain, like the ying and yang. I wipe the lip and turn the bowl once more so that I can see the face, where the “hidasuki” marks of the tatami straw mingle with the wood ash where the flame has licked the surface and begun to form runnels. I invert the bowl to examine the foot, the turned surface distinct from the thrown, with shell marks on the foot ring from where it was set in the kiln. I turn the bowl once more and pass it back to Miyake san, who has been waiting, watching, patiently.

He takes the bowl once more, washes it as before and says to me, “Moh ippuku ikaga desu ka?” (Would you care for another cup?) I waver for a moment, then reply, “Iie, oshimai kudasai.” (No, please feel free to finish.)

He bows. “Oshimai itashimasu.” (I will draw to a close.) He pours hot water in the bowl once more, this time to wash the chasen, which he examines carefully to make sure it is clean and undamaged. After disposing of the water in the kensui once more he wipes the bowl and places it on the tray. He wipes and replaces the chashaku and natsume into their correct position on the tray, refolds his cloth and tucks it back into his obi. Rising to a crouch, he lifts the tray, stands, and shuffles quietly from the room, kneeling to bow deeply at the door.

I wait quietly for his return, savouring the calm, alone for a moment once more with the kettles song. It is easy to forget that the bustle of central Tokyo is only metres away. Just on the other side of the shoji screens, beyond the display windows, crowds throng and traffic oozes along the “Chuo Doori”(central road) to and fro across Nihombashi, the bridge of Japan. The river which runs below it is named after the bridge. The centre of the bridge marks the geographical centre of Japan, and the imperial palace is just a short stroll away.

He returns with the bowl and places it in front me.

“Doh?” (How was it?) I ask.

He smiles. “Hijouni tsukaiyasui!” (Very comfortable to use!) he says enthusiastically. “The shape and surface make it very easy to foam the tea, and the size fits the hand exactly. Did you see how the colours worked together?” I smile and nod. We sit and examine the bowl again, dissecting it, holding it and turning it. Discussing how it fits in the hand, how stable it was to whisk the tea, how beautifully it enhanced the tea. We have done this every year, and I have learned about tea. It isn’t just the bowl. It’s the entirety of the ceremony that is art, art in process. I would never pretend to be a tea master, for to become a tea master is a life long dedication. No, I am just a potter who is a student of tea at best.

The tea ceremony isn’t an arcane mystery, it is an exploration of the beauty of simplicity. It touches all your senses, gently, with no embellishment. How simply, beautifully and most of all deliciously can you make a cup of tea? For that is the essence of a tea bowl, not a rigid structure of size or form or colour, not a regurgitation of how other tea bowls are, but a foray into the pleasure of a nice cup of tea.

It is the morning of my fourteenth annual exhibition here at Ebiya Gallery, and the doors will soon be open for business. But for this little time Miyake san and I have it to ourselves. We step from the tea room into the main gallery space, with my pots displayed on its antique furnishings. Later I will wrap the teabowls in saffron cloth and sign boxes for them, sealing them with my Japanese stamp. And hopefully they will come to life in someone elses hands and give them joy in using them, just as I have taken joy in their making.

And somewhere in the back of my mind, “There’s nothing like a nice hot cup of tea.” Say’s mum…

Opening Day

2010-11-21T01:07:00.002+09:00

The customers have gone; I am alone. Midnight has just passed and the five antique clocks which hang on the walls of Ebiya Gallery just struck sixty o'clock. It was a quiet opening, partly due to the fact that the advertising didn't start till Thursday, but also because that is what I wanted this time.

I had prepared half the exhibition two months ago, but there were always those other vessels that I wanted to make....and so the Mashiko Pottery festival came and went, and the shelves were full of pots waiting to be fired. I selected the best 400, and stacked the kiln. After over 200 wood firings I know where the flame will flow, where the ash will fall, where the clouds of vapour will caress the surface of the vessels. Using sea shells and Igusa straw I stacked the pots, and when the kiln was full I sealed it up and prayed. My skill is only a fraction of the finished pot, for at every stage I am borrowing the forces of nature and adding to them a purpose. It is the nature of matter, of amorphous clay, to find a shape which will bring balance, peace and harmony within the parameters of the natural forces at work upon it. It is the nature of humanity to be nature self aware, to recognise the beauty of nature and express it with our own unique voice. But we cannot control nature, we can only guide it, and it is only by surrendering control to the greater power of the universe that our endeavours can find true beauty in form. And so I fire my kiln, knowing about how carbon and oxygen and hydrogen and sodium will all play their parts, but understanding that the kiln, the flame, will tell me when it needs more wood, or less draft, or more air.

Sean, with all the wisdom of a five year old, asked if he could help. "Of course", I said, though the kiln was seething at volcanic temperatures. "Can you count to 5?" I asked.

"Yes." said a confident small voice.

"Then please pass me five pieces of wood."

And so he did, and he arranged them in rows, and passed them to me when I needed them, and the firing belonged to him as well. When the pots emerged from the kiln they were his pots also, and they were the most beautiful pots I have ever made.

Beauty is not a noisy thing. It is quiet and strong and gentle.

I sit in the gallery alone, but not lonely at all, for these pots are born of my love of life, and each is a voice singing softly to my soul. All of my experience, those I have loved and who are gone, those who love me and give me strength, those who wait for my return, are part of these quiet pots, and I will sleep in peace tonight.

Tokyo Exhibition

2010-11-19T21:42:00.003+09:00

I would like to invite you all to my 17th annual exhibition at Ebiya Bijutsuten (Ebiya Gallery) in Nihombashi,Tokyo. I am honoured to be able to exhibit here once again, and Miyake san was kind enough to write the following introduction;

Concerning Euan Craig

“My vessels first become complete the moment they are used by the hands of my guests.” These are the words which always spring from Euan’s mouth and they express his passion as a potter. For over 17 years, since I first met Euan till this very day, this has been an unchanging quality imbued in his work.

Always full of smiles to greet you, under any circumstances, Euan is a potter with a truly gentle heart. I cannot help but believe that it is because of this that every single vessel which is born of his hands returns a heart warming message from everyone who uses them.

Together with Euan, we have accumulated these annual exhibitions one by one. I am blessed to have shared such wonderful times with him, and I am a truly happy man.

It is simply my heartfelt hope that in times to come, 10 years, 20 years…and even 100 years hence, Euan’s vessels will continue at everyones side, to be loved and find treasured use, forever and always.

Masahiro Miyake
9th Generation Master of Ebiya Art Gallery,
Nihombashi, Tokyo
Purveyors in Antiquities since 1672

「私の器は、お客様の手元で使っていただいて時、初めて完成するんですよ！」
この言葉は、ユアンがいつも口にする陶芸家としての熱い思いでございます。

それは、私がユアンと出会ってから今日を迎えるまでの約１７年間、けして変わる事なく、その作品に込められてきました。

どんな時でも笑顔いっぱいで迎えてくれるユアンは本当に心の優しい陶芸家でございます。だからこそ、彼の手から生まれる器の一つ一つが、皆様からの暖かきメッセージとなって帰ってくるのだと私は思えてなりません。

ユアンと共に、こつこつと積み重ねて来た毎年の個展。こんなにも素晴らしい時間に恵まれました私は、本当に幸せ者でございます。

この先、１０年・２０年・・・そして１００年先も、ずっとずっといつまでもユアンの器が、皆様のそばで愛され続け、大切に使われてゆく事を、ただただ心より願うばかりでございます。

２０１０年１０月吉日

海老屋美術店　９代目店主　三宅正洋

EUAN CRAIG CERAMICS EXHIBITION

2010.11.20.Sat.-28.Sun. 11:00am-7:00pm (Open everyday)

Opening Party; November 20th from 5:00pm, with cuisine provided by Kappo Toyoda.

EBIYA GALLERY
3-2-18 Muro-machi, Nihonbashi,Chuoh-ku, Tokyo 103-0022
TEL. 03-3241-6543
FAX. 03-3241-1914
http://www.e-ebiya.com/category/1165681.html

I'll be at the gallery every day. If you are in the area, please visit and enjoy my new work.

I look forward to seeing you there.

Euan Craig

The Book of Pots

2010-10-01T21:57:00.005+09:00

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,

Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit

Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,

Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.

If I were to name just one book which has inspired me most in both my approach to pottery and to the way I live my life, it would be the "Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam". Written by a Persian poet in the twelfth century and rendered into English by Edward Fitzgerald in the nineteenth, it teaches about life and the miracle of the ordinary.

Here with a Loaf of Bread beneath the Bough,
A flask of Wine, a Book of Verse - and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness -
And Wilderness is Paradise enow.

Probably not what one might expect, but more than any other work it has inspired me to live in the moment. I know as much as anyone the ephemerallity of life, yet the Rubaiyat puts it into sharp focus.

Ah, make the most of what we yet may spend,
Before we too into the Dust descend;
Dust into Dust, and under Dust, to lie,
Sans Wine, sans Song, sans Singer, and - sans End!

It has taught me to recognise that I am a part of nature and that, though I cannot control the challenges which fate puts before me, my actions and choices are completely my own.

For in the Market-place, one Dusk of Day,
I watch'd the Potter thumping his wet Clay:
And with its all obliterated Tongue
It murmur'd - "Gently, Brother, gently, pray!"

Perhaps my favourite section is the "Kuza Nama" or the "Book of Pots". One day I shall have an exhibition with that title, for it has taught me that the making of pots is a process of self development, and that a potter is defined by his works, just as a human is defined by their actions.

Listen again. One Evening at the Close
Of Ramazan, ere the better Moon arose,
In that old Potter's Shop I stood alone
With the clay Population round in Rows.

And, strange to tell, among that Earthen Lot
Some could articulate, while others not:
And suddenly one more impatient cried -

"Who is the Potter, pray, and who the Pot?"

When I was a boy trying to deal with the difficulties and injustices of life, struggling to find some self esteem, watching helplessly as fate stripped away the possibilities of those I loved and searching for hope and a path forward; my Aunty Thora introduced me to Omar.

None answer'd this; but after Silence spake
A Vessel of more ungainly Make:
"They sneer at me for leaning all awry;
What! did the Hand then of the Potter shake?"

She was a philosopher, and eventually gained a University Degree in Philosophy at the age of 72. Sitting in the light of the oil lamps in the kitchen at the farm, surrounded by cascading mountains of books, She and Omar taught me to accept the world as it is; for the world, as it is, is a beautiful and wondrous place. No nonsense, no facade, they taught me to face myself. Many of the things which society teaches us are "Important", politics and power, fame and fortune, are illusions that will blow away with the sands of time, and that true happiness can be found in the simple things of life.

Waste not your Hour, nor in the vain pursuit

Of This and That endeavour and dispute;
Better be merry with the fruitful Grape
Than sadden after none, or bitter, Fruit.

And so I chose to become a potter, not because of what I wanted to do, but rather who I wanted to become. I do not have the things which most people associate with success; but I love my wife and my children and they love me, and I sleep with a clear conscience. As I write I hold one of my goblets and sip plum wine that a friend made. It is sweet and has a subtle almond fragrance which goes nicely with the cheese toasted on our home baked bread. I have today and it is good. I cannot heal the world, nor can I always take away the anguish from the hearts of those I love, though I wish with all my heart that I could. But I can give form to my passion, and through these vessels perhaps give joy to others and help them find succour in simply living. And perhaps in a hundred or eight hundred years this clay that my fingers have touched will touch the lips of another and give them hope. Just as Omar's words reached over eight hundred years and all the barriers of language and culture to touch my heart, and these words I write tonight may reach some anonymous reader elsewhere on the globe.

Ah, my Beloved, fill the Cup that clears
To-day of past Regrets and future Fears:

To-morrow! - Why, To-morrow I may be
Myself with Yesterday's Sev'n thousand Years.

TAMAM SHUD

　

Making Tea Bowls

2010-09-29T15:13:00.005+09:00

Yesterdays rain is gone, and a cool breeze brushes my face as I rake the chestnuts and their prickly pods from the front lawn. I have seen the older children off to school, but Sean insists on helping with his own small rake before he leaves. When we are done, and I have swept the drive, we stand back and survey our handiwork. Satisfied, we shake hands, his tiny five year old hand enveloped in my gentle grip, and he merrily goes off to pre-school with Mika. As I put the tools away I notice a blush of red among the foliage of the woods.

It is not the autumn leaves that one might expect, but the berries of the Sansho, the native Japanese pepper. I collect them in a bowl and wash them before putting them out in a woven bamboo tray to dry. As they dry they will split, revealing the black seed inside. We will remove the husks, separating them from the seeds and stems, and it is these red husks that we will grind into the fragrant sansho pepper. The seasons march on.

The light is soft through the studio doors as I spiral wedge the ten kilograms of clay, one hundred times anticlockwise, reverse the piece of clay, one hundred times more, then finish in a cone. I place the clay on the wheel head and top up the water in my throwing bowl. The throwing bench is clean, and I place my favourite ware board beside the wheel. (Yes, I have a favourite ware board, but that's another story.) Beside the water bowl I place my one ended throwing string and my sponge, as these are the only tools I will use today. I am ready to begin.

I throw a little slower than I would perhaps for other forms, letting the clay find it's centre beneath my fingers, letting the marks of the process remain on the clay. I do not measure, at least not with a ruler. I feel the amount of clay that I can hold comfortably in my hand, I lift it and belly it into a form which will be good for whisking the tea. The curve of the bowl must fit the hand, the lip must be comfortable to drink from, the inside must have somewhere for the tea to settle. There are names for all the parts of a tea bowl, just as there are names for all the parts of a tree. A tree however is not constructed from parts, it grows as a whole, and it cares not for the words we use to describe it. To make a tea bowl according to a formula of parts is to make a bowl which is about "tea bowls", not to make a bowl for tea. And so each bowl I make is different, an exploration of form, surface and space. The kiln will finish them for me, but for now I seek only to embrace this moment and release it into the clay, giving form to the forces of nature.

The making of tea bowls is not a simple thing of measurements and rules. There are a plethora of books about tea bowls, with photographs and measurements of classic examples, and these are useful as a guide. But they are useful in the same way as a wine guide. It gives an intellectual framework perhaps, but understanding only comes through the drinking of the wine. How much greater must the understanding, the knowledge and the skill base then be in order to make a fine wine? It was for this reason that I became a student of the tea ceremony some years ago, as I had been asked by many Japanese friends to make tea bowls yet lacked an understanding of their use and the philosophy of tea.

By studying the art of tea I began to understand that the tea bowl is part of a greater art work, an installation if you like, in which both the server and the drinker of the tea actively participate. The bowl is the focal point, the conduit through which all of these aspects interact, but it is dependent on the rest of the whole. The tea ceremony is a celebration of experiencing the simple sensual beauty of the moment. Thus the season, the weather, the ambiance all become vital players. I received these licences to practice the tea ceremony from the Urasenke school of tea on October 10th, 1998. I will be learning for the rest of my life.

The making of tea bowls is, for me, a quiet and gentle thing. Just as a tree cannot be forced to grow, just as a child must be nurtured, the clay must be allowed to take form. It is my task to stay still and wait for the bowl to find a shape that fits my hand, and to know when to release it. It is about being aware of the changes happening before your eyes and recognising the moment, and it is like holding a child's hand firm enough to guide it, but never too tight.

Tokyo Workshop

2010-09-22T09:06:00.003+09:00

EUAN CRAIG Master Class

at International School of the Sacred Heart, Tokyo

Saturday October 16th

(Suitable for clay minded people of all abilities)

9:00-6:00

“ UNDER CONSTRUCTION”

Getting a handle on knobs, spouts, stems and attachments.

A practical workshop on the design and techniques for constructing functional pottery from thrown components, with special focus on pulled handles.

Cost ¥12,000 ( this includes lunch and ¥1,000 donation to SEEDS Nepal I.S.S.H. Charity Project )

(The three one day ISSH Master Classes have been awarded 1 credit from Univeristy of San Diego)

CONTACT : tootell@gol.com

With a career spanning over thirty years, Euan Craig is internationally renowned for his elegant wood fired functional ceramics. He began his pottery career at the age of fourteen in the historic pottery town of Bendigo, Australia and after gaining a degree in Ceramic Design from Latrobe University, he established the Castle Donnington Pottery in Swan Hill, Victoria. Strongly influenced by the philosophy of the Mingei Art movement and, in particular, the work of Japanese National Living Treasure Shoji Hamada, Euan left his native Australia to pursue his career in the traditional pottery village of Mashiko, Japan. Euan apprenticed to Hamada’s successor as Mashiko’s preeminent master potter, Tatsuzou Shimaoka, who was also designated a Japanese National Living Treasure, and after graduating established his own studio in the neighbouring town of Ichikai. He is Shimaoka’s only foreign “Deshi” apprentice to have remained in the Mashiko area, where he has worked for over twenty years.

Euan has had numerous exhibitions of his ceramics at galleries throughout Japan, including the prestigious Mitsukoshi and Takashimaya Department Stores and the Ebiya Art Gallery in Nihombashi, Tokyo, as well as exhibiting internationally in Australia, North America and Europe. He has taught workshops and summer schools in Japan, Australia and the UK, and his “Eco” fast fire wood kiln design is being used by many potters in Japan and the rest of the world. Essays and articles by and about Euan have appeared in publications in Japan and internationally, and he has made several appearances on Japanese radio and television. His signature dinners and collaborations with leading Japanese and French chefs have gained him an international reputation, leading the field in hand crafted wood fired functional ceramics.

What people have said about Euan;

“His stance in pursuit of the beauty of function  which is useful to people in their everyday lives is superb.”

Tatsuzou Shimaoka  : Japanese National Living Treasure

“When one thinks of “Mingei” in global terms, it can be said that his stance is pointing a way forward for the inheritance of “mingei” in the modern age.”

Ikuzo Fujiwara :Director Kyohan 6 Gallery, Mashiko, Japan

For information about other master Classes:

Masakazu Kusakabe -“The Japanese Tea Bowl” April 9^th

David and Margaret Frith "THROWN, PADDLED AND BEATEN" 2 Day workshop March 4/5

Swanica Ligtenberg “Horse Hair Fuming and altered thrown forms” May 14^th

Please contact: tootell@gol.com

Nature by design

2010-09-09T21:16:00.012+09:00

Generally speaking, nature is beautiful as a matter of course. It doesn't set out to be beautiful or spontaneous, it just goes about the business of arranging matter in accordance with the laws of physics and as a collateral effect creates patterns and forms that we find beautiful. I would contend that we find them beautiful because we are part of the same universe, made of the same material according to the same laws. Effectively the universe made self conscious, looking at itself and applying abstract meaning to its perceptions, and thereby defining it itself.

The shape and structure of minerals is determined by the way in which the atoms of which they are formed fit together as a matrix. The substructures of cleavage planes and angles thus formed determine the colour, hardness, diaphaneity and crystalline shape of the minerals, in short all of its physical properties which we find beautiful. It is a consequence on the large scale of a process which happens at the atomic level, according to the laws of physics.

When all the conditions were right the universal laws dictated that life should enter the scene, creating new and more complex structures. The shape of cells and the imprint of genetic coding has created a rich and diverse myriad of life forms on this little wet rock which spins around the sun. Within all these life forms, plant or animal, is a drive to survive, to flourish and to procreate. Whether it is a single strand of hair from an arctic bear designed to insulate against the cold or the hexagonal matrix of a beehive, nature creates structures that are efficient and ingenious and incidentally beautiful on every level.

The synchronised aerial acrobatics of a flock of birds, the aquatic ballet of a school of fish. The colour, shape and fragrance of a flower designed to attract insects to pollinate and bear fruit, the plumage and dance of a bird of paradise to attract a mate. There is a purpose in nature, in every aspect, and nature creates infinitely varied and structured patterns and forms incidentally to that purpose. We humans also have evolved in the same world according to the same principles, and somewhere along the line we have started to understand some of these principles and manipulate them to our advantage. That the hair of these animals is warm, and if we spin its fibres and weave the threads together we can create garments which allow us to increase our area of activity in environments that we could not have survived in naked. If we breed these animals or propagate these crops we can guarantee our food supply throughout the year. If we fire this clay we can make vessels to store, cook and serve these foods.

And so, incidental to our own struggle for survival and procreation, we created patterns and forms which were based on practical and efficient principles, and they were beautiful. Beautiful in the same sublime way that nature makes the scales of a fish or the fronds of a fern or the rising and setting of the sun. We have flourished. Our ancestors took nature to wife and husbanded it well, nurturing it and caring for it so that we in turn could enjoy the bounty of its embrace. Useful, beautiful, healthy and sustainable. Each generation passed it's knowledge to the next, adding their own experience and discoveries. Knowledge alone, however, is not enough, and a system of training and practice became established and this became tradition. Through training, practice and repetition we master the skills until they become natural to us, like language, allowing us to express our thoughts and feelings through the medium of our craft.

Our ancestors learned that cooking some foods made them more palatable, and that by combining them with other foods their flavour, fragrance and food value could be increased. As the range and variety of foods increased, so too did the need for vessels appropriate for the serving of that food. Hot liquids, for example, required shapes to keep them hot, handles so that we could hold them without burning our fingers, saucers to catch the liquid if it spilt, plates to serve fairy cakes on. As each individuals perspective and perception is unique, so too are our solutions to those design challenges and our artistic expressions.

These skills are not hard wired into our genetic code, however. Heredity does not imbue us with the skill to sit down and make a cup and saucer. One cannot stand up one day and spontaneously make or pull handle which springs from the vessel in organic curves, twisting in tendrils round the chattered hip of the vessel. These are skills we must learn, and we all start from the same point. No accident of birth gives us the ability to automatically be a potter, though circumstance may place us in an environment that nourishes our creative spirit so that we may grow to be one. It is only after we have trained and practiced and made a hundred or two hundred or a thousand, that those skills become natural to us, allowing us free and spontaneous expression.

Traditional society is all but gone, and the healthy beauty that existed as a consequence of it is going with it. It is, therefore, the task of our generation to be aware of our place as nature self aware and to consciously choose to be a part of the real world. Not the disposable industrial construct that we have built around us to separate us from nature, not the virtual escape and the veneration of the useless. This world that we have taken to spouse is not disposable, and the health and welfare of our children depends on how well we husband it. We are part of this beautiful world, and we have the ability to create art which is useful, beautiful, healthy and sustainable by design.

The matter which makes our universe, the space in which it exists and the principles by which they interact are part of a grand design, though who you believe that designer to be is not for me to say. Never the less, the universe is beautiful as a matter of course, and we are part of that.

What's for Dinner?

2010-09-01T14:18:00.014+09:00

They tell me that Autumn has come, but the cicadas don't seem to be convinced. The children are back to school today after six weeks of holidays, (though with the volumes of homework they had I'm not sure that's the right word!). The days are still long and hot, not as humid as they have been, and the garden is green and lush.

Each morning Mika goes out to the vegetable plot and harvests the days produce. No chemicals or pesticides have been used on this land for at least twenty five years, so our vegetables are organically grown and ripened on the vine. During this time of year we get by with mostly our own produce. With four growing children we need all the help we can get!

Many of the vegetables that we grow here are the same as I had in Australia, but often there are subtle differences. The cucumbers that we grow here are much more slender with very thin skins.

The same applies to the aubergines ("nasu" in Japanese), although in recent years larger varieties have become popular, generally marketed as "American Nasu".

Nasu have been popular in Japanese cuisine for hundreds of years, but of course my first introduction to Egg Plant was in Greek and Lebanese cuisine in Melbourne in my youth.

There are, however, a variety of foods and vegetables here in Japan which I had never known before, and which are part of our daily diet. Many of these I know only by their Japanese names, and am often at a loss when asked what they are in English! One such vegetable is the "Gohya", or "Niga Uri". "Uri" is any of the squash, gourd or pumpkin family, and "Nigai" means "Bitter". This strange looking vegetable, which is very popular in Okinawa, is quite bitter when eaten raw. I slice it down the middle and remove the seeds and pith, then slice it cross ways and blanch it in salted water for a few minutes before using it.

One of our favourite dishes made with Gohya is "Kakiage", a kind of vegetable fritter. I mix the blanched Gohya with sliced aubergine and "Sakura Ebi" (literally "cherry blossom shrimp"), and then add one egg, two tablespoons of plain flour and some water. This mixture is then shallow fried in dollops till golden on both sides.

"Agedashi Dohfu" (Fried tofu) goes exceptionally well with the kakiage. I cut the tofu into 5 cm cubes, then zap it in the microwave for a few minutes to make it release the excess water. After draining off the water and patting them dry with a clean cloth, I dredge them in corn flour and fry them lightly. The garnish is sliced "Myouga", a relation of ginger, and "Ohba", a large leafed native herb related to basil. I make a sauce of 6 parts "Dashi" fish stock, 1 part soy sauce and 1 part "Mirin" sweet cooking sake. Bring this to the boil to evaporate the alcohol, then pour over the tofu to serve. This same "Tsuyu" sauce is used for dipping the Kakiage.

It is nice to serve "Sunomono", a vinegared side dish, with fried foods. In this case, sliced cucumber, sprinkled with salt and left to sit for ten minutes, then rinsed. Mixed with a hand full of roughly chopped "Wakame" sea weed, served with a dressing of equal parts sugar and vinegar.

Of course no Japanese meal is complete without a bowl of steamed rice. A sprinkling of sesame seeds adds fragrance.

Today we may dine in Japanese style, tomorrow might be something from my mothers cookbook, who knows? There is a world of possibilities. In this world where we can access the whole globe at the touch of a finger there are always new discoveries to be made. Sometimes those discoveries are simple pleasures that are common to all of us, familiar things that have brought joy to humans for generations past and will continue to do so for generations to come. After the kids get home from school and have been out adventuring out in the back yard, making discoveries under every leaf, they'll come rushing in with choruses of "What's for Dinner?"

With one thing and another, we have a very full life.
　　
　　
　　

Sake Cups

2010-07-04T11:11:00.008+09:00

As western culture often speaks of "Daily Bread", here in Japan the staple diet of rice is so ubiquitous that the word for rice and meal are the same..."Gohan" (御飯), or more informally "Meshi" (飯). Rice is used for making a huge variety of other foods, one of the best known of which is, of course, "Sake" (酒), or "Nihonshu" (日本酒) the Japanese rice wine. Our local Sake is Souhomare (惣誉), one of the best in the prefecture. There are makers of Sake, called "Sake Gura" (酒蔵), in just about every town in Japan, and there are a huge variety of types and styles. Some are clear, some cloudy, some should be drunk warm, others chilled. Thus, because there are so many styles of Sake, there have developed a wide variety of cups from which to drink it. Probably as many as there are potters in Japan, so here are just a few!

Probably the best known style of drinking sake is the warm Sake called "Atsukan" (熱燗) . Strictly speaking, Atsukan should be 50 degrees centigrade, and often it is heated to disguise poor quality sake, but there are types of sake that are designed for this temperature. Any warmed Sake is called "Kan" (燗), but each temperature has a different name. 33C is called "HinataKan" (日向燗, Sun Warmed) , 37C is "HitohadaKan" (人肌燗, Skin Warmth), 40C would be "Nurukan" (ぬる燗, Luke Warm), 45C is "JoKan" (上燗 High Warmth) and, for those who like it really hot, "TobikiriKan" (飛び切り燗, Over the top!) at 55C. Atsukan is usually a winter drink, so to make sure that it doesn't cool too quickly it is poured in small quantities into Sake cups called "Choko" (猪口, Boars Snout), which has a high foot shaped like a boars snout and a small, deep bowl. They can be lacquer ware or ceramic.

There is, however, another style of "Choko" for cold Sake. It is basically cylindrical in shape, so that the whole cup is shaped like a boars snout. These two cups were made by Masumi Narita, another Mashiko potter and Sake lover, and one of the important points about these cups is the fineness of the lip. Sake cups do not need to be identical to be a set, they merely need to share a common theme. There are some people who believe that the "Choko" name refers to the small quantity consumed with each cupful ("Chokotto", means "in small increments"), and I wouldn't be surprised if the Japanese traditional love of puns hadn't influenced the original naming.

It is usual for sake cups to be sold as pairs or sets of five. Four is an unlucky number, as it is a homonym for "Death". These two "Choko" of mine came out of last weeks firing. (They are available from my Gallery here.) "Cold" Sake is called "Hiya" (冷や), and is drunk at room temperature like wine. Colder Sake would be "Suzubie" (涼冷え) at 15C, "Hanabie" (花冷え, Blossom chilled) at 10C and "Yukibie" (雪冷え, Snow chilled) at 5C.

Everyday general purpose Sake cups are called "Guinomi" (ぐい呑, Gulping Cups), which are named for the sound one makes when one swallows. The small Guinomi would generally be sold as a set of five, to be enjoyed at a gathering or with a meal. The two front Guinomi are by my Sensei, Tatsuzo Shimaoka, National Treasure, and were shapes which I was trained to make during my studies with him. The one at the back is one of a limited edition which I made to commemorate my exhibition at Ebiya in 2000.

The larger Guinomi would be sold individually, and a serious Sake lover would have a wide variety of them to select from depending on the style of Sake, the season or their mood. A sake cup like these, again by Shimaoka sensei and myself, might be used for "Nigorizake" (濁り酒, cloudy sake), which us unfiltered and milky white.

For more formal situations it is traditional to use a shallow bowl shaped cup called a "Sakazuki" (盃). This would only be used with the best Sake, crystal clear and usually cool. This is a silver sakazuki from the Imperial household, as can been seen by the imperial crest in the centre of the cup. A pattern is often made in the centre of the cup so as to emphasize the clarity of the Sake. It is very nice with a "Yukibie" on a hot, steamy summers day, just like today.

Full of Beans

2010-06-21T19:58:00.013+09:00

The sunrise on the Summer Solstice is grey and damp. "Tsuyu", the Japanese rainy season, in full swing. After the breakfast rush and getting the kids off to school with "Obento" lunch boxes, we set about our own tasks for the day.

I am packing my kiln at the moment, but the weather is affecting my work cycle. Because I do not bisque fire my pottery, and apply the glazes raw, the pots must be bone dry. A difficult task when it is humid one moment, drizzling the next! (The leak in the studio roof doesn't help much either!) There are sometimes breaks of sun for just a few hours though, so last week I managed to get the pots outside to dry properly.

The kiln shelves are cleaned and coated with a fresh layer of kiln wash. I lay them out to dry on bamboo poles that I harvested in winter with the boys. I lash bamboo poles to the old pipes, from the gas kiln I had in Nanai many years ago, to span across to the edge of the garden terrace. The boys use the pipes for a soccer goal, so I dismantled the structure at the end of the day. Raising the pots up into the air away from the damp grass helps them dry faster, but that is not the main reason for this contraption.

The last thing that I need is pussy foot prints in broken pottery shards. The four kittens we currently have cavorting about the garden are full of beans, but not yet big enough to venture up to the terrace. Most of the time they spend occupying my shoes.

Mid afternoon the rain began, big fat drops sent to reconnoitre at first, then an onslaught of cats and dogs, followed by a persistent skirmish of drizzle. If one drop of rain lands on the raw glaze it will lift away from the clay leaving a crawling scar in the finished glaze surface. There is twenty metres of open ground between the studio and the kiln shed.... Packing the kiln will have to wait until tomorrow.

After cleaning up and taking a coffee break with Mika, the kids start arriving home from school. Homework and dinner preparations begin in earnest. We have the first batch of string beans from the garden to add to the main course, but today I have a special treat in store...because last Sunday was Fathers Day! The family surprised me with an Ice Cream Maker!

I am using it for the first time, so I decided to stick with basics; Vanilla. I just happen to have some Vanilla pods in the cupboard (as one does!), so here it goes.

VANILLA BEAN ICE CREAM

200 ml Milk
200 ml Cream
Half a Vanilla Bean
1 Whole Egg
2 Egg Yolks
80 grams Sugar

Split the Vanilla Bean down the centre and scrape out the seeds with the point of a knife. Mix the cream, milk and Vanilla pods and seeds together in a saucepan and simmer gently for 20 minutes. Blend the remaining ingredients in a separate bowl till ivory coloured and creamy. Pour half the simmered mixture into the bowl and continue blending, then return the whole mixture to the saucepan and heat gently till thickened like custard. Chill this mixture in the fridge and remove the bean pods before placing in the Ice Cream Maker.

Serve with a sprig of fresh mint.

Without a doubt, this is the best Ice Cream I have ever had. The family, especially the kids, agree, and now, like the kittens, the coffee, the ice cream and the garden, we're all full of beans.

Surface Tension

2010-06-09T16:59:00.005+09:00

We take the forces at work around us for granted most of the time, hardly realising that everything in nature, even a drop of rain, is as it is because of universal forces. Forces and structure pressing outward, weight and pressure pressing inwards, and the point of balance between those forces, the border line that defines a form, we call the surface.

When forming clay on the wheel, it is the task of the potter to remain still while those forces work against our hands and find balance in the shape of a pot. Once taken from the wheel and allowed to dry partially, the clay shrinks and there is a certain tension in the surface when the pots are returned to the wheel for trimming. The trimmed surface is therefore different in character than the unaltered thrown surface. I have always found the play between these surfaces delightful. I therefore try not to interfere with that too much by cluttering it with decoration.

When doing a collaboration with a french restaurant a few years ago, however, I needed to add a rim motif. I am not one for drawing pictures of things on pots, so I created a small design which extends the idea of surface.

If one scratches a line in leather hard clay, the edges will tear, leaving a jagged and messy edge. If you cut the same line with a sharp tool so as to pare away the clay the edge is sharper and far more energetic. Using a hoop tool with an acute angle I cut an exclamation mark. Below that I add three dots, compressed with a cone shaped wooden tool. As the clay from the dot is not removed from the surface it moves into a raised crater like edge, giving these indentations a different textural character than the cut mark.

Beside these incised and compressed marks I add, literally, a drop of slip. Slip, or engobe, is a liquid clay used for decoration. In order for the slip to be compatible with the clay I use the same porcelain for the slip as that which constitutes 75% of the clay body. The shrinkage of the slip is, therefore, exactly the same as the clay, so there is no chance of cracking or flaking. One slip I make fairly viscous, and add 2% of Copper Oxide. I apply this with a thin metal rod as a single drop, touching the end of the rod to the clay surface and allowing surface tension to pull the slip into a circular droplet on the rim of the bowl. I prepare a second engobe which is thinner, with 2% of Chrome Oxide, and, using the same metal rod, I touch a droplet to the surface of the pot then flick the end of the rod away, once again using surface tension to create a dynamic elongated tear drop shape.

These applied engobes give a raised pattern which counterpoints the intaglio incising and impressed marks on the rim. When fired, the pure porcelain of the engobe becomes slightly glassier than the clay body. The Copper becomes red in the reduction, a form of "Shinsha" glaze, and the Chrome becomes green. Combined with the flame colour of the clay, the Igusa straw markings and tenmoku glaze, this small motif adds a subtle and dynamic accent to the rim of the vessel which is rich in visual and tactile information.

We interact with nature and the world around us on many levels, and tactile beauty is just as important in art as visual beauty, more so for those without the gift of sight. By utilising surface tension and the forces of nature, energy and tension can be expressed intimately in the surface of a vessel.

Through My Son's Eyes

2010-06-05T16:09:00.011+09:00

One Sunday, 2010

Now.

I am sitting on the bench on the hill in front of our house. Dad, my little brother Sean and I are eating potato chips together while we drink cocoa. The cocoa that I am drinking, from a mug which Dad made, is warm, it’s flavour mellow and slightly sweet, it’s fragrance soft and gentle. Absolutely delicious.

The vegetable beds were tilled yesterday, and beyond our garden I can see rice paddies, further yet I see hills and forests. I can see far, far into the distance.

Brown soil, green leaves, yellow, pink and pale mauve flowers. The clear blue sky and pure white clouds reflect on the surface of the water in the rice paddies.

The sunlight on the vegetable garden glares brightly, but where I sit now on the bench is dappled with a pattern of shadows from the leaves of the trees.

The harsh voices of a blue heron, flying across the sky, and a white heron, walking through the rice paddy, echo on the gentle breeze.

It may not have been anything special, but I enjoyed it and it’s beauty.

The crumbs of potato chips that have fallen on the ground are being cleaned up for us by the ants. The last mouthful of cocoa is cold, but still delicious.

I am very grateful.

Translated from the diary of Rohan Craig, age 8

　　
(The original Japanese can be found on my Mika's blog Here.　　
美果のブログに、この文章の日本語版がここにあります。)　　　

Mock Fish

2010-05-27T20:31:00.007+09:00

Advanced skills are elementary skills, just as the greatest joys are the simplest ones. During my many discussions with my friend Hashimoto Touru about Japanese cuisine, he has pointed out that the high art of Japanese Kaiseki cuisine is based on good old fashioned home cooking. Food was prepared to be served to the master of the house and guests, and certain homes became renowned for their hospitality. As more guests came to these homes with gifts, these homes became more prepared for greeting those guests, and so in time places which specialised in hospitality emerged. That is the root of the hospitality industry, and I think that holds true in any culture.

Pottery emerged in a similar fashion from the need for vessels in the home in ancient times, and as different families began to specialize in particular trades, so too pottery became a profession. Perhaps not the oldest, but fairly close!

I began potting when I was about 14, working part time in studios near my home. Even then functional pottery was what I wanted most to do, and it was the lifestyle and the humanistic nature of the art that interested me most. When I was young I found myself in a position where I needed to question conventional values and find answers that would help me achieve my potential. Pottery allowed me to explore art, science and philosophy, while building my physical strength and dexterity, all in collaboration with the basic forces of nature, and then to give that a form that was beautiful and functional, communicating my feelings to others in an intimate way. It is a career that continues to be challenging and from which I will never retire, and the pots that I make will hopefully bring joy to generations to come.

I have been working with chefs since the '90s, and it began with my desire for my pots to be used and to improve the quality and practicality of my work. In order to make good pots one must know how to use them, so I have always enjoyed cooking and serving food on my work. I am not, however a professional chef, and felt that I needed the input of a professional chef. I also needed to "test drive" the results, so the collaborations began. I love the process of making and firing the work, the preparation and serving of the food, and the ultimate enjoyment of sharing a meal with those I love.

There have been many challenges along the way, not the least of which has been trying to gain the understanding both of the public and my family and friends that pottery is an Art and a Career, not just a glorified hobby. Working with chefs and sharing my vessels in a restaurant atmosphere has been a wonderful opportunity to help that understanding, and the photographs of the work with food have helped to communicate that idea. However, I started to find people saying that the food they cook at home could not do justice to the pottery, and was incomparable to the cuisine served by professional chefs.

Which brings me back to my original point, that even the best of cuisine is based on the simplest of origins; enjoying food in the home with the people you love. One of my favourite meals in all the world is a simple dish that my Mum used to make called Mock Fish. It is made from potatoes mainly, and I have memories of Mum making batch after batch while my brothers and I devoured them with lashings of tomato relish. So when a friend brought me some home grown spuds, onions and tomatoes the other day, and eggs were cheap, I cooked up a batch, and served them with a sprig of dill from the garden. I took a photo of it and that has been at the top of my blog ever since. The simplest of foods, served in the simplest of ways, on hand crafted vessels, enjoyed with the people you love. What could be more nourishing for the body and the spirit?

MOCK FISH　(My Version!)

1 Large Onion, diced
5 Eggs
80g Plain Flour
1 Level Teaspoons of Salt
1 Level Teaspoon of White Pepper
5ml White Vinegar
1kg Finely Grated Potato

Olive Oil to Shallow fry

Add the ingredients to a large bowl in the order shown, and mix each potato into the mixture as it is grated. This will avoid the potato oxidizing and turning brown. When thoroughly mixed, fry 100ml dollops of mixture on medium heat for three minutes each side till golden brown. Serve as shown in the photo, sandwiched with a slice of fresh tomato and a sprig of fennel, or with lashings of tomato relish. They're really nice cold too! 　　
　　

Wabi Sabi

2010-05-11T13:38:00.006+09:00

Just as in English there is a whole vocabulary available for the discussion of Art and Beauty, so too does such a vocabulary exist in Japanese. There is a tendency among people with a passion for and some experience in Japanese art to use the word “Wabi sabi”, and yet so little understanding of what the term refers to. Leonardo da Vinci said that, “If you cannot explain something, you don’t understand it.” To be anecdotal for a moment, there was one young American anthropologist who had studied pottery briefly in Mashiko, who gave a slide lecture here to coincide with an exhibition of American ceramics. Anything in his slides which seemed even vaguely Japanese influenced he described as possessing “Wabi sabi”. One of the thirty or so professional Japanese potters in the audience enquired, “What do you mean by Wabi sabi?” He laughed as he responded, “Nobody knows what Wabi sabi means!” The entire audience laughed also, but the young gentleman never realized that it was not because they agreed with him, but because of his naivety. Wabi sabi is not some mystical secret, but a basic aesthetic principal. Merely because he didn’t understand it doesn’t mean that it cannot be understood.

Historically “Wabi sabi” was first coined by Sen Rikyu, the founder of the Japanese tea ceremony. Tea was used as a political tool at that time, and the Daimyou, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, often invited political opponents to enjoy tea with him. The sheer richness and lavishness of his style of tea were designed to impress and intimidate. In contrast to this Sen Rikyu proposed a style of tea which was about simplicity and minimalism. Essentially the tea ceremony is about enjoying a nice cup of tea, with all of the five senses. The word for “Delicious” in Japanese is “Oishii” which literally translates as “Beautiful flavour”. So, tea was about beauty. Beauty of sound, of touch, of taste, of fragrance, of vision. If all five senses are to be involved then it is imperative to control the environment in which the ceremony takes place, hence the birth of the tea house and garden. For Sen Rikyu, beauty was not about lavishness. What he proposed was that by eliminating all of the extraneous clutter it was possible to appreciate the essential quality of beauty.

Etymologically, “Wabi sabi” is based on the root forms of two adjectives, both of which are generally translated as “Lonely”. “Wabishii” however focuses on the object which is lonely, where as “Sabishii” focuses on the absence which makes the object lonely. The principal of “Wabi sabi” is therefore; Beauty reduced to its simplest form, and that form brought to a peak of focus by its relationship with the space in which it exists. That is to say, the presence of an object and the presence of the space interacting to strengthen each other.

The idea that space has presence is not new. Two and a half thousand years ago the Greek philosopher Parmenides proposed that it is impossible for anything which exists to conceive of anything which does not exist and that therefore even the space between objects “exists”. This remains in modern English as the concept that “I have nothing”. In Japanese however, it is grammatically impossible for “Nothing” (Nanimo) to exist (aru). “Nothing” (Nanimo) must be followed by “Is not” (nai). The idea of the presence of a space was therefore revolutionary.

To take it one step further, a tea bowl, being a vessel, is defined by the space it contains. It is not the pot which is important, but the space. In the tea bowl it is therefore possible to have the object (Wabi) and the space (Sabi) interacting within the same pot.

There is a story about Sen Rikyu having a hedge of Morning glory planted in his tea garden, and Toyotomi Hideyoshi was to enjoy the tea ceremony when it blossomed. On the morning of the ceremony, the hedge was in full bloom, a swathe of pink flowers. Sen Rikyu came along and clipped off every flower, saving only the single most perfect blossom, which he displayed in the tea house. Had he left the flowers as they were this single blossom would have been lost in the crowd. In the space of the tea house, however, it was beautiful beyond compare. That is the essence of “Wabi sabi”.

Toyotomi Hideyoshi was apparently extremely angry, and it is interesting to note that shortly afterward Sen Rikyu was forced to commit “Seppuku” suicide.

The long and the short of it is that “Wabi sabi” is about simplifying the beauty of nature to its essential elements, and the vitality brought to that beauty by the mutual interaction of object and space, even within the same object. That which is not there is just as important as that which is. This concept has pervaded the Japanese aesthetic and is not confined to pottery, but can be found in any art, including literature and cuisine. It does not exist in every piece of art work, though, and care should be taken in using the term appropriately. It does not mean somber, that would be “Shibui”, nor calm, that would be “Ochitsuita”. There is a whole vocabulary in Japanese to describe art and beauty, just as there is in English. Perhaps we would be wise to use the one we understand the best.

Trees are generally beautiful, but a leaf is beautiful in a very specific way. Having a thousand leaves does not make a tree a thousand times more beautiful than a single leaf.

　　　
　

Really Good Friday

2010-04-02T20:34:00.011+09:00

For a number of years when I first came to Japan I would receive a letter from Mum some time in April saying "I thought you would have at least called at Easter." I would then phone to say "When was Easter?" It isn't on any of the calendars here, and as the dates change every year I completely missed it for the greater part of a decade. (The same is true for pancake Tuesday...only more so!)

Since the children came on the scene I have been more diligent in searching out the dates each year, and trying to give the kids their share of Australian culture (which does in fact extend beyond yoghurt).
This year is the first time since the children started school that the Japanese spring holidays have coincided with Easter. It has been a conflict trying to get the "Good Friday" holiday idea through to non Christians, and this year, at last, the kids are at home without any negotiations!

Yesterday Sora and I, with the occasional itinerant help of Sean, Mika, Canaan and the significant absence of Rohan (who was enthralled in a book about another famous Potter), baked five dozen Hot Cross Buns, which should last till Sunday, even in our house!

For lunch we enjoyed Norwegian Smoked Salmon, (Thanks Kei!), Mexican Avocados and French Camembert with salad and crackers, with a cheeky Australian chardonnay. A meal to leave a Carbon footprint in the sands of time, but ....it is Easter after all!

This evening we enjoyed exotic Fish and Chips, with beer batter of course, and extra tasting to make sure that the beer was OK. We're still not sure, so the tasting continues....

Hot Cross Buns (This years recipe!)

280ml of tepid Water
1.5 teaspoons of Dry Yeast
5 dessert spoons of Sugar
1.5 teaspoons of Salt
3 dessertspoons of Olive Oil
200 grams of Plain Flour
200 grams of Gluten Flour
20 grams of Walnuts
100 grams of Raisins
1 teaspoon of mixed spice

Mix all ingredients in a bowl in the order listed. Mix thoroughly and then knead for seven minutes (It helps if you are a potter!)

Cover with a damp cloth and raise in a warm place for 30 minutes, or half an hour, which ever comes first, until it is about twice in volume.

Measure the dough into twelve equal balls and arrange on a greased baking tray. Cover with a damp cloth again and raise for a further half to three quarters of an hour until doubled in size.

Brush beaten egg over the buns then drizzle a creamy mixture of plain flour and milk in a cross over the buns. Bake in a preheated oven at 190 degrees Celsius for 25 minutes.

Toast or reheat before serving.

Happy Easter to you all, more news when the bunny arrives!
　
　
　　

Legal standards for functional ceramics in Japan

2010-03-29T12:07:00.004+09:00

You may remember by blog entry "Safety First" , concerning the food safety standards for functional pottery in Japan. I have been asked by some of you for more information about this, so I have read the notification in the original Japanese and the following is my brief interpretation of it in so far as it applies to functional ceramics. The law applies to Glass, Ceramics, Enamel and other food vessels and packaging, so I won't deal with the full scope of the law. I am, after all, Euan the Potter.

According to notification #416 of the Japanese Ministry of Health, Welfare and Labour, as of the 1st of August 2009, it is required for all manufacturers and importers of ceramics for food to conform to the standards set by the International Standards Organisation for levels of heavy metals, specifically Lead and Cadmium.

These safety levels are based on the amount of Lead and Cadmium which can leech into a liquid from the vessel under set test conditions. These levels and conditions are set out in the second table on THIS LINK.

The levels differ slightly for vessels which are used to heat food and those which are not. However, Sake bottles (tokuri), Chawan Mushi Chawan (vessels for savoury steamed custard) and other vessels which can be used to heat or reheat food by any method not exceeding 100 degrees centigrade, where heating food is not the main function of the vessel, will be treated the same as vessels which are not for heating food.

The notification does not state the method by which these standards will be enforced, but department stores in particular are asking for certification of safety in Japanese before vessels can be sold. This is probably in line with the Public Liability Laws which were introduced a few years ago making the manufacturer and retailer responsible for injury to customers due to faulty or dangerous products. I believe that it is required by customs for imported ware, and as I was required to provide this for Mitsukoshi, and my pots are made in Japan, it seems to be required for domestic sales as well. I have only been asked by department stores, however, so I am unsure of the extent to which certification is required.

It only applies to vessels for food. In particular it is important with low fired lead glazes and on glaze enamels, but it applies to all food vessels. Within Japan testing can be done in a variety of places, but I recommend the Tajimi Ceramic Institute. Their home page outlines their testing methods and costs. One representative sample of work should be sent for testing, and they return it. I do not know whether they accept work for testing from overseas.

So, there you have it. If you are making vessels for food, Japanese law requires that they be food safe according to ISO standards. That sounds fair to me.

Black is Black

2010-03-24T11:04:00.001+09:00

My friend and fellow deshi of Shimaoka sensei asked me an interesting question the other day.

"How do you keep your black glaze black in a Soda Firing?"

There are indeed lots of ways of getting a black glaze, but you have to decide what kind of black you want. Many black glazes use an overcharge of several colouring oxides to give a dense black. In my case, I am looking for the warm translucency one finds in lacquer ware. Lacquer is in fact brown, but layer upon layer make it so dense it appears black.

In order to achieve a similar brown based black I turned to the Tenmoku style iron glaze. The base glaze is clear, using only four ingredients; Feldspar, Silica, Whiting, Kaolin. To this I add FeO, or Black Iron Oxide.

Using Black Iron Oxide gives you a head start, as the Iron is already reduced. Using Red Iron Oxide, Fe2O3, will require more work to get rid of the unnecessary oxygen.

There are a plethora of glaze recipes available which are excellent Tenmoku in a gas kiln.

Within any plant there are minerals which have been drawn from the ground, and when burnt these minerals either become gaseous and volatise off into the atmosphere or remain as a solid residue, ash. When firing a wood kiln the gaseous minerals, like sodium, will flow through the kiln with the flame and exhaust gases, combining where it contacts with free silica in the clay or glaze surface to form a soda glass glaze. Ash is blown into the kiln with the flame as a powder, settling on the pottery and glaze, adding a coating of a variety of minerals depending on the plant. At a high enough temperature, usually about 1300 centigrade, these minerals, silica and fluxes, will melt and form a glass coating all on their own. The colour and surface will be affected also by what minerals are contained in the vessel surface and mix into the glaze matrix. At the end of my wood firing I also add some Soda Ash , NaCO3, which becomes a gaseous flux inside the kiln in the same way as the natural vapours from the wood.

So, in a wood and soda firing the glaze gets watered down. The ash adds an extra wash of relatively clear glaze and the gaseous flux Sodium makes the glaze melt even more. You end up with a variety of oatmeal and honey glazes. You can see how the "hidasuki" markings from the "Igusa" straw have left golden veins in the black glaze on this plate. Too much straw and it all turns to golden toffee. That can be nice, but it's not black, and it might not be what you want.

So, you need to make the glaze harder, so that it is a bit short of flux and a bit resistant to soda, raising its melting point. By reducing the Feldspar, for example, it raises the melting point, but also raises the ratio of Iron in the glaze. Iron is resistant to soda. Effectively you adjust the glaze recipe to make allowance for the extra flux which is floating around as a gas in the kiln atmosphere.

Glaze application is also important, as no matter how good your glaze is, if it is too thin the ash and soda are going to win. I apply my glaze at a viscosity of 60 by the hydrometer. Tenmoku is very sensitive to variations in texture underneath, so also be aware that the finished glaze surface and colour are only as good as the finished surface of the vessel.

It has taken me years to get my clay body, glaze recipe, glaze application and firing right, and all of those variables affect the finished result. The same glaze will be different in a different firing or on different clay, so it is necessary to experiment with your own materials and firing. In the end it becomes another inimitable expression of your own aesthetic. Hopefully these principles will help you along the way.

The Real World

2010-03-11T15:42:00.004+09:00

Home. After a week in Tokyo I am home. My return was delayed by a late fall of snow on Tuesday night. My friends asked me to stay an extra night rather than driving through a worsening blizzard on dark, icy roads, and I thank them for their kindness and hospitality. The snow had turned to rain by yesterday, and the grey sludge that had made Tokyo's roads so dangerous the night before had washed away without a trace. The congested traffic thinned gradually as I headed out of the city, north into the country. The houses became sparser, replaced by fallow fields not yet sown for spring and an ever increasing number of trees. There was still snow on the ground when I got home, though a drizzle of rain was making it thin. Mika came out to greet me as I pulled into the driveway. The kitchen was warm from the wood stove and by the time the kids came home from school it was snowing lightly again. Home.

This morning the sun rose through the snow covered trees in front of the house. As I went out onto the front veranda to feed the cats, I startled a family of pheasants that had been scratching in our compost heap and they scattered noisily into the bamboo. When I returned to the kitchen the children were busily preparing for school while Mika readied breakfast. We all sat down and enjoyed our morning meal together before they hurried off to join their friends. When Mika returned from taking Sean to preschool we had a cup of drip filter coffee and chatted while I signed wooden boxes. We made a delivery of beer cups and tea bowls to a gallery in Utsunomiya during the day and by the time we returned home it was quite warm out side. We sat on the bench in front of the house and enjoyed the sun for a while.

The exhibition went very well this year, better for me than last year, and I thank my friends and clients for making it so successful. I am, however, glad to be home, away from the constant buzz of the city, the crowded subways, the grey concrete and black tarmac. I am happy to sit in the sun and listen to the wind in the trees, rather than stand in the windowless, artificial light of the department store and the drone of piped music. To know that what I see is what there is, not just an elegant facade. On breaks from the department store I would walk to Ebiya across the bridge and find calm in that little oasis. In the evenings my friends made me welcome in their home. It helped me through the exhibition. But the city and all its artifice distresses me, and I am glad to be here, in the real world. Home.

Takashimaya Exhibition in Tokyo

2010-03-03T07:33:00.007+09:00

Today sees the start of an exhibition at Takashimaya department store in Nihombashi, Tokyo.
Myself, Penny Simpson and Peter Seabridge are holding our second exhibition in the 7th floor Kougei Gallery, and we will be there every day till Tuesday the 9th. For several years we exhibited together at the Tokyo Dome Tableware Festival, but from last year Takashimaya has hosted our show.

The timing of the exhibition also coincides with the restaurant G'Drop winter menu which features my vessels. So, if you're in Tokyo over the next week, drop by and see us!

Mud Maps

2010-02-16T11:00:00.001+09:00

There was once a great King of Assyria named Assurbanipal, "King of the Universe". He reigned in Ninevah in the mid seventh century BC and ruled an empire that included Egypt, Mesopotamia and most of Asia Minor.

He was the only king of Assyria who ever learnt to read and write. He ruled his people wisely and subdued his enemies cruelly. His greatest achievement, however, was his library. He built a great library in Ninevah, and gathered all of the literature, legends and knowledge of the ancient world there. The writing of that time was cuneiform, written in clay with a wedge shaped stick, and though there may have been other documents written on wax, or papyrus or parchment, the main volume of the library was written on raw clay tablets. Thirty thousand of them in fact.

He gathered them from the corners of his empire, some of them dating back to the third millenia BC, and created the first systematically organised library of the ancient world.

Unfortunately not even the "King of the Universe" can live forever, so when he died at the ripe old age of 42, there was dispute over his throne. The dispute and civil disruption came to an end in 612BC, when Babylon razed Ninevah to the ground, put torch to the library, and the Assyrian empire crumbled into ash and rubble. The library, it's contents and accumulated knowledge were lost in the sands of time.

BUT WAIT!

What happens when you burn down a wooden building with wooden shelves full of wax and paper and parchment and tens of thousands of raw clay tablets? That's right, tens of thousands of earthenware tablets that will last forever!

So, in 1839, when a young British archaeologist happened to be passing through Mesopotamia on his way to Ceylon, he had a poke around and discovered a library of cuneiform texts that included, among other things, the oldest epic narrative in the world, the Epic of Gilgamesh. But that's another story.

And here am I, thousands of years in Assurbanipal's future, leaving my own marks upon the clay. In thousands of years some strangers hand will hold the vessel I have made, use it, and find beauty there.

Time rolls on and leaves it's marks upon us with it's passing. It neither names nor counts the years, but the years are stamped indelibly in the grain of wood and the strata of the earth. For our brief time upon this earth we measure it, number it and arbitrarily dissect it and name the fragments we have cut it into.

We convince ourselves that our arbitrary names and numbers are absolute truth and that we are masters of the world. It gets rather tiring, don't you think, forcing the world into an hour glass? Strapping pieces of time to our wrists so that we don't lose it and constantly chasing dead lines?

I am only here for this one short life, seeing this day, this moment, through these eyes. I am neither a king nor am I Yanagi's unknown craftsman. So I leave my stamp upon the clay of my vessels, and beside it a mark to tell the year, for I have made these works in my time, they are unique, and though they may last for thousands of years, I will never pass this way again.

Milestones

2010-01-21T18:24:00.005+09:00

I had never seen snow until the morning I arrived in Japan. Narita was freezing as I walked out of the terminal, all my worldly possessions in two carrier bags. I stood on the curb waiting for the bus, hoping I was in the right place. Conversations hummed around me, but I didn't know what they said. Signs and timetables, posters and advertising, all in words I could not read. I was alone, thousands of miles from the home I had left behind, unable to speak, unable to understand, illiterate. The Japanese gentleman beside me looked at me askance as I began to laugh. The adventure had begun.

Today I sat in my studio trimming dinner plates. Mika sat beside the wheel bench, in the warmth of the wood stove. We were talking about the four children, about ideas for a new studio, making puns, just talking about a myriad of things while I worked. We were talking in Japanese. Just as I began chattering the foot of the plate Sean came bouncing into the studio saying something of world shattering importance, as all things uttered by four year olds invariably are. Unfortunately we could not hear a word he said because of the chattering tool, but as I lifted the tool and quite descended, he rushed off to save the world, and we will never know what he said. I started to laugh, and Mika laughed with me.

The young man who stood laughing in the snow on January 21st, 1990 is still here inside me, somewhere, 20 years later. He is, however, no longer alone. The adventure continues.......

Bamboozled

2010-01-19T07:47:00.006+09:00

I walked through the woods, the shafts of morning light piercing the crisp cold air. The boys, Canaan and Rohan, followed behind me, chattering excitedly as if some great adventure was afoot, their breath bursting out in billows of white vapour. In my hand I had my trusty double edged hand saw; the traditional Japanese style, with coarse rip saw on one edge and fine cross cut on the other. We had a mission, and now was the time, after the winter solstice and before the vernal equinox, when nature was dormant and saving its power deep inside. We were hunting wild bamboo!

As we crossed the no mans land between the ash grove and the bamboo, a brace of pheasants broke from the undergrowth, their thudding wing beats compressing the air, their raucous screeches shattering it. The boys laughed in surprise, and we cracked and crunched our way down into the shadows of the bamboo. We selected out several good, thick stalks, ones with a bit of dust encrusted above the segment rings and a satin sheen, not the shiny green ones. Bamboo is best when it is about three seasons old and the walls have become thick and hard. The young ones, still thin and glossy, are too weak for the task I have in mind.

Down low, close to the ground, I use the cross cut saw to sever the stalk, then thrust my shoulder against it and march forward in a powerful tackle that brings the fifteen metre giant crashing down behind me. We drag him through the brush, then cut him into 3.6 metre lengths, finally throwing his bushy head onto the ever growing pile we have started on the edge of the woods. This pile will rot down and compost over the next few years, deepening and enriching the soil, a home for stag beetles and lizards. When we have gathered a stack of poles enough to sate our needs, we tuck a pole under each arm and drag them back down through the woods, and display our booty on the lawn in front of the house and studio.

We now cut them to exact length and fit them into the empty shelf frames in the studio. The old ones have been removed after serving their time on the rack, some of them nearly ten years, supporting my pottery from it's birth on the wheel till it's trial in the kiln. The years of wood smoke from the stove in the corner have cured them so that they can now be cut down into bamboo dragon flies and other traditional tools. What is left over will be burnt in the stove to keep my family warm this winter. Nothing is wasted.

The sweet fragrance of the freshly cut bamboo fills the studio as I look at the clean empty space from the bedroom doorway. It beckons me, it dares me, like the clean fresh pages of new diary.

The Golden Drop

2010-01-13T21:38:00.008+09:00

It is the food that makes the vessel, and the vessel that makes or breaks the meal. I am happiest when I am enjoying a meal with my family, made with vegetables and herbs that we have grown ourselves, served on my own vessels. This is the essence, the seminal point from which the desire and need to create pottery begins. That is not, however, where it ends. Were pottery my hobby then that would be enough, but as pottery is and always has been my profession, my vessels must prove their validity in the professional arena.

Imagine walking into a fine restaurant packed with diners enjoying their cuisine on your own hand crafted vessels. From entree to dessert, each vessel designed for each separate course. As you walk from the entrance through the crowded tables to your reserved seat, the laughter and conversations of the others guests surrounds you. Each table you pass is at a different stage in their meal, the soup, the meat course, the fish. Accompanying each, excellent wines from around the globe. You have just walked into G'Drop, in Nihombashi, Tokyo.

Since January last year, G'Drop has been using my vessels for the winter season. You may remember the Ceramics Monthly article about it. They have about 500 pieces which I made after discussions with the chef, designed for the menu. This year (yesterday in fact!) they have asked me to make some additional pieces, which I will begin making tomorrow.

What is important about this for me is that these vessels are not just being used for a one off meal, but are being used for every meal in a sixty setting restaurant, for lunch and dinner, six days a week for three months every year. They are warmed in ovens or chilled in refrigerators, served with cuisine, eaten from with a variety of cutlery, washed in the dishwasher and stacked ready for the next order.

It is hard to imagine a harsher proving ground. The four "T's"; Functionality, Durability, Stability and Beauty, are all put to the test. Not only in the hands of the professional staff, but by the most unforgiving judges of all; the dining public. The other important issue that this is not a Japanese restaurant! Oh yes, it is in japan, but it is not serving Japanese cuisine where hand crafted pottery is the rule: this is a Continental style restaurant, where handcrafted ceramics are very much an unprecedented exception.

The winter menu on my vessels is only available until the end of march, and I have promised to have the new pots to add to it by the end of January so the race is on again!

The Dancing Frost

2010-01-07T21:03:00.004+09:00

The winter holidays are over today and Jack Frost painted patterns across the windows of the engawa for the pleasure of the children. The engawa forms an air lock between the inner house and the elements, and though we are warm in our little cocoon, the frost still descends and the pipes still freeze.

Each pane of glass has a different design, no two are the same. This is the beauty and wonder of pattern in nature. The elements of the material world find form through aligning themselves with the interacting forces of nature. These infinitely variable combinations give rise to a never ending parade of unrepeatable beauty. A beauty that we humans can appreciate.

We too are the product of those forces, our physical beings built of elemental building blocks, constructed by universal forces, driven by life in its desire to become. We are the stuff of the universe, self conscious, aware of our being. We experience the world around us and find the things within it, the things which are born of this natural process, beautiful and good.

Beauty and good, however, are abstract and immeasurable ideas that only we, thus far, have found reason and means to communicate. The rest of the universe simply is. It's elements rearrange themselves endlessly in an ever changing dance. This mornings frost will evaporate into the water vapour that it was, and perhaps tomorrow it will be mist, and the next day it may be snow, only to melt in the spring to be a river, a lake, a glass of water, me.

Our spirit, our consciousness, is as real as any other thing in this sea of stars. Even though we cannot measure it, it exists as surely as the frost on the window pane. It has it's time in this form, and looks at the world in wonder. We are the universe, looking at itself, giving itself abstract meaning, the universe made self conscious. We have this time to live and love, and through our art and literature pass that on to those who follow in this ever lasting dance.

A Piece of Cake

2010-01-04T20:23:00.004+09:00

One of the pleasures of winter is the wood fired slow combustion stove. The Traditional Japanese architecture of our home wasn't really designed to keep the cold out, but we have insulated the ceiling and closed off most of the drafts, and the wood stoves keep us nice and warm.

My first experience of a wood stove was on my Aunty and Uncles farm in Redesdale, Victoria in the early '70's. Whenever we would visit during winter, Mum would say, "You can't waste a hot oven!", and baking would summarily ensue. Scones, of course, was first on the agenda, but there was this one nifty cake recipe that was as simple as could be and came out perfect every time.

"Wonder Cake" she called it, and I make it now for my children. (Visitors too, if their timing is right!) It makes a great emergency birthday cake, and with the addition of nutmeg, or cocoa, or banana, or dried fruit....it can transform into a myriad of different cakes.

I have altered the original recipe slightly to make it easier to make with the ingredients available here and to use olive oil instead of melted butter. So, if it happens to be your birthday, and your a bit short on preparation time, here's the recipe. It's a piece of cake. Happy Birthday!

WONDER CAKE

1 Cup (250ml) Plain Flour

1 Cup of Sugar

1 Rounded Teaspoon (5ml) Baking Powder

1 Cup of; 60ml Olive Oil, 2 Eggs and fill it up with milk.

Mix it all together, pour it into a greased and floured cake tin and bake for 45 minutes at 180 degrees Celsius.

Happy New Year!

2009-12-31T19:31:00.002+09:00

It is the last day of the '00's (the Naughties), and tomorrows newspaper arrived this after noon. If only I had access to the stock exchange!

We are enjoying our "Toshi koshi soba"(Buckwheat Noodles to traverse years) in traditional Japanese style, and will see the New year in with traditional Hogmanay, Auld Lang Syne and first footer celebrations!

Happy New Year everyone, and all the best for the '10's (the Teenies)!

Merry Christmas!

2009-12-24T14:27:00.006+09:00

Christmas has come once again, reminding us how important our family and loved ones are to us. This December we have spent a great deal of time going to doctors for Sean (4), who has been fighting pneumonia. Last week he was given a clear bill of health, only to have been diagnosed with Influenza today. We are praying that Santa Claus will bring him a quick recovery.

In the time between I have been trying to fill orders and have managed to deliver them in time for Christmas. Of course the kiln can't be fired unless it is completely full, so to fill the kiln I made these 300 beer cups as well as the orders.

Japan is not just the land of the rising sun, but also of the frequent earthquakes. Last Friday, just when the firing finished and the pots were still hot and sticky inside the kiln, we had two fairly large earthquakes here (the epicentre was the other side of Tokyo, but it was still significant here!). So, I waited with baited breath for the next few days for the kiln to cool enough to unpack it and assess the damage.

Thankfully we only lost two shelves of pots, and the four stacks supported each other in the kiln and the ash and glaze was just sticky enough to hold it all together! Stability is always an issue when I am designing my work, and I'm pleased to say that not a single cup in the whole kiln actually fell over!

In a situation like this it is important to remove as many pots as you can from the kiln before you disturb the shelves, just in case it all comes crashing down!

So, I am grateful for all my blessings, hopeful for a bright new year, and I pray for the health and happiness of all those I love.

I wish you all a blessed Christmas.

One out of the box

2009-12-05T08:58:00.008+09:00

There are teabowls in Japanese history (which still exist as national treasures or in private collections) which were valued so highly that they were worth the lives of a thousand men, or a castle and it grounds. They were treasures, and therefore were treated as such. They were wrapped in cloth, beautiful bags were made for them, they were stored in boxes made to measure, signed by the maker or the tea master. The boxes themselves, having been signed by a great master, would be treasures in and of themselves, and so another box would sometimes be made to protect the first box. Thus there are some great bowls which have several boxes within boxes to protect them.

I would never presume to value any of my pots in that way. For me they are fragments of my life and natures process captured in physical form, and as such each one is an irreplacable art work. As a maker of future antiquities, knowing that the teabowls that I make may last hundreds of years, it is, therefore, important to present them in the traditional way. I am constantly striving to create the best teabowls that I can, but not all of them come out of the kiln successfully. I select out the best for exhibitions or private sale, and for these I have boxes made.

The boxes are made from paulownia wood, which is a fine straight grained softwood, resistant to rotting and doesn't burn easily. This makes it ideal for protecting tea ware. The boxes are made with slots in the base to thread cords through so that they can be tied closed.

In order for the contents of the box to be identified without opening the box, I sign the outside of the lid. The "Kanji" characters at the top right of the box say "Cha Wan", simply "Tea Bowl". At the bottom left is my signature, in English horizontally, and in kanji vertically. My kanji "釉庵", read phonetically as "yu an", and mean "pottery glaze" and "Tea house" respectively. Were the bowl to be named or described, I would do so on the inside of the lid.

Japanese is, of course, my second language, so reading and writing do not come as naturally to me as English. Signing boxes can be somewhat of a challenge, as the characters are written in "Sumi" (charcoal) ink with a brush, and cannot be erased. You get one shot. I used to practice on paper for an hour before signing boxes, but I am much more comfortable with it now. It is important to have the ink at the right viscosity, as if it is too thin it will bleed into the wood grain, too thick and it won't flow, a piece of advice that Shimaoka sensei gave me. I grind the ink in a stone ink tray to get the consistency right before I start.

I had trouble finding a brush I liked, so I went to Yubendo in Nihombashi, a brush specialist, and spoke with the expert. After explaining what the brush was for, he asked what sort of brush I preferred to use. I said " I'd prefer to use a magic brush which makes everything I write beautiful, if you have one in stock?"
"Sorry," he said "We're fresh out of those today." After we stopped laughing he let me try several different brushes till I found one which suited me. The brush is called "大竜眉"(Dai Ryuu Bi), which means "Great Dragon Eyebrow". (It sounds better in Japanese, believe me!) It is a fairly narrow brush with a core of "Itachi" (weasel) surrounded by "Shima risu" (striped squirrel). It was rather like buying a wand at Ollivanders. As a result, however, my writing improved dramatically, almost as if by...Magic!

In the bottom left corner is my "Hanko", my stamp. This is once again my Japanese Kanji, and it was carved out of stone by a friend in Utsunomiya. The stamp ink, called "Shuuniku", is very thick, rather like printers ink, and needs the be worked with the ivory spatula before it is used.

The same hanko is used on the yellow turmeric dyed cloth that the bowl is wrapped in before it is packed in the box.

As with all of my work, my teabowls are made in collaboration with the forces of nature, and I discover them when I unpack the kiln. There are a few which really appeal to me, and it is these which I select out for exhibition and sale, these few which I take such care to box. This year I have selected out twelve bowls for my "Recent Works" Gallery blog, each with a full description, please take the time to view them. The tea bowl is part of the greater art work which is the Tea Ceremony. There are many elements which make up that work, including the tea drinker. The ceremony itself is ephemeral, and once finished lives only in our memories. The tea bowl, however, is a treasure which will last forever.

Coming of age

2009-11-25T17:40:00.006+09:00

It is interesting and unexpected when turning points arise in our lives. We may see the same person, the same scene every day and be unaware of the small changes, the signs of growth and the passage of time. Then, one day, we realise that they have changed, and things will never be the same again. Today was such a day.

Sora, my daughter, turned twelve last month. I baked her a cake, Mika decorated it, and we all sang happy birthday as we have for the last twelve years. She is now in year 6 at primary school, and every year the grade sixers at our local school get a chance to learn how to cook a five course dinner, taught by a professional chef.

His name is Kazunori Otowa, the french cuisine owner chef of Otowa Restaurant in Utsunomiya, the prefectural capital. First they went to his restaurant and enjoyed a meal there, then he and his staff came to the school to teach the children how to prepare the meal. But today......

Today the children prepared a meal for their parents, dividing into five groups, each group responsible for a separate course. They then prepared the meal from scratch for a total of sixty people, students and parents, and the parents were allowed to watch, but not interfere!

Of course the meal needed plates, and each child had to take dishes from home, so over the weekend Sora selected out some of my vessels for the meal. I watched, as the children cooked under Otowa chefs guidance, biting my tongue. The other parents shared this new spectator status, wanting to help, advise...but we must merely watch and wait.

I set up a small photo space on the window ledge, and as each course was served I photographed it just as they served it!

I have always said that my vessels are only complete when they are in use, and today my daughter and her friends took my vessels and served me a delicious five course french meal on them. As I ate, as I enjoyed this beautiful cuisine, I realised that this was a turning point. My child had become my creative partner, completing my works for me in delightful and independent ways.

I remain, as always, the happiest bloke I know.

The Simple Life

2009-11-11T13:08:00.006+09:00

The art of living is a very simple thing. It is about recognising the beauty in our everyday lives, appreciating the miracle of it, and sharing it with those we love. Modern life and social pressures tend to inure us to the quiet, intimate beauty around us, but if we take a moment to catch our breath, there is joy to be had in even the simplest of things. The turning of the seasons, the light from the kitchen window, the fragrance of salmon baking in the oven.

Autumn is in full swing. The trees are shedding leaves in flurries of amber and gold, the days are shortening and the evenings are cold enough to need the wood stove. The rice harvest is done, and we have new rice from Mika's parents paddies, grown with pure spring water and no chemicals. We have picked the last of the capsicums and the first frost has withered the plants.

Yesterday our neighbour brought us a salmon which he caught in the Nakagawa river during the afternoon. The Salmon run up the river every autumn to spawn, searching for their own birth place to lay their eggs. Our neighbour is licenced to fish a limited number every year, and brings us a few over the period. We give them vessels from the kiln in return.

I decided to bake the fish whole in the wood stove for dinner last night, and as I opened the fish to clean it discovered two huge sacks of roe inside! I reserved these in a bowl while I finished dressing the fish and put it in the slow oven. I added nothing to the fish, allowing its own flavours to develop. It took an hour to cook, so while I waited I prepared the roe to marinade.

I followed Mika's recipe, pouring 70 degrees hot water into the bowl with the roe and separating the roe from the sacks. I then rinsed the roe several times in cold water before putting it into the fridge to chill. Once chilled I added a mixture of 6 tablespoons of Soy Sauce, 2 tablespoons of Sake and 2 tablespoons of Mirin, and then left it in the fridge overnight.

We ate the baked salmon with steamed vegetables and rice, but there was far too much for one meal, even with the 6 of us! I boned the remaining fish and put it with its own baking juices into a sealed vessel in the fridge.

Today we made steamed rice with a slice of "Kombu" (kelp), the fragrance of its cooking like the distant smell of the sea. When the rice was cooked I added a mixture of vinegar, sugar and salt to make sushi rice. For 3 cups of dry rice, I would add 4 tablespoons of vinegar, 3 tablespoons of sugar and 2 spare teaspoons of salt.

I made a series of stackable cylindrical bowls for the dinner and exhibition last month and use them today to make individual "Chirashi Zushi". Firstly I spread a serving of the sushi rice into the bottom of the bowl. Then I make a few thin omelettes and slice them into fine slivers and spread this on top of the rice. On top of this I sprinkle sliced red and green capsicum and avocado. I then flake the cold salmon from last night and add that to the top of the dish. Last of all I sprinkle the marinated roe and "Lo, a feast for the senses!"

The seasons come and the seasons go. This day, this moment, however, is ours to share now, and it will never come again. Oh, there will be other days to come with other joys, just as there have been times and seasons past that we have shared with others that we have loved. The ones gone remain in our hearts forever, along with hope for the ones to come, but there is no where I would rather be than right here, right now, with those I love, sharing the simple joy of this season.

These vessels are available for purchase on my Recent Works Blog

Peculiar Customs

2009-11-06T21:08:00.003+09:00

A television production company from Tokyo phoned me last night while I was trying to cook dinner for my family. It was a special curry and naan dinner to celebrate the success of the Mashiko Pottery festival. The gentleman from the TV program wanted me to be involved in a program called "Travelling around the world without leaving Japan". The gist of the program is for a TV personality to visit the home of various foreign born people now resident in japan and to experience something peculiar to the culture of their native land.

For two hours the gentleman quizzed me about Australian culture and what peculiar customs we performed in our home that they could notch into their program. Christmas was discussed, as was New Years Eve. He asked me if there were traditional songs and dances that we do, and even if I'd won any major awards. Basically he was hunting for the "Oh, aren't they different!" factor.

Australia is a multicultural nation, each family has its own traditions. If, as a nation, we have a defining quality, I should imagine that it is our recognition that all humans, regardless of culture, race or creed, share more commonalities than differences.

Mika waited dinner for me, but by the time I got off the phone the kids were starving, so we had a quick curry and rice and off to bed boys and girls. After they were in bed I cooked apple chutney like mum used to make, and tonight we had a real curry dinner, as promised, with naan and saffron rice.

If just one phone call could spoil our weekday dinner, imagine a TV crew at Christmas? It was kind of the gentleman to enquire, but I don't think my family or our customs are peculiar enough for his program. Needless to say, I declined.

Mashiko Workshop with Ikuzo Fujiwara

2009-11-03T20:54:00.002+09:00

Fourteen potters, artists and art educators gathered last weekend in mashiko for the tenth World Art Educators Workshop. Fujiwara Ikuzo, the premiere mural and architectural potter of Japan was the presenter of the workshop, and played host to us in his own studio here in Mashiko. It was a brilliant experience for everyone, and far more than I can put into words here (particularly considering I am writing this during the Mashiko Pottery Festival...no rest for the wicked!)

For me personally it was a chance to understand the philosophical and religious basis for his sculptural work. Translating and interpreting depends on my understanding the original expression, then re-expressing it so that others can understand it. As Leonardo Da Vinci said; If you can't explain it, you don't understand it. Hopefully, everyone came away with a greater understanding of Fujiwara san and the Japanese culture.

Below the Belt

2009-10-21T10:14:00.004+09:00

Yesterday saw the end of my exhibition at Mitsukoshi. Thanks to all of my guests throughout the exhibition for your support. I was very touched by the gifts I received. It was great experience and I would like to thank everybody involved in the exhibition, its preparation and successful execution. In particular Hashimoto san was fantastic, both in his cooperation at the design stage and the fantastic food he served throughout the exhibition and also the wonderful demonstrations that he did with me at the talk shows at Mitsukoshi on the 10th.

The demonstrations were packed, with all the seats taken and folks standing up at the back. I've never been comfortable with a microphone, but Hashimoto san was provided the only clip on which left his hands free. After an introduction by the Mitsukoshi MC, I gave a talk about the aesthetic and technical aspects of my work, about why I became a potter and about the food and pottery collaboration. Hashimoto san then gave a demonstration and a talk about how best to serve food on my vessels, the principles of composition and the importance of emphasising the season, and balance in flavours, textures and colours. It was a fascinating and educational experience for everyone.

Many guests were able to enjoy the vessels and the cuisine at Kappo Toyoda during the exhibition (including myself...fantastic!), and at one stage there were so many bookings we borrowed extra vessels from the exhibition! All in all another invaluable experience to have under my belt.

Craftsmanship and time

2009-10-19T11:06:00.005+09:00

"As I was going down the stairs,

I met a man who wasn't there.

He wasn't there again today,

I wish that he would go away."

After a hundred or so years of being polished by slippered feet, the stairs of the Okazaki Ryoukan have worn into soft waves around the wood grain. As the morning light caught the edge of the step on my way to the onsen, I felt part of the long line of guests who had unwittingly participated in the creation of this beauty.

Traditional Japanese architecture is a study in light and shade. Shoji screens that allow diffused light to enter a room, light filtering through the "Ran Ma" screens above the walls, light reflected off the tatami floors. These Ran Ma also allow a flow of air between rooms, helping to prevent mold and ventilate the rooms.

There is no glue used in making this screen, the component parts having been cut by hand with impeccable precision. There was a pride in the creation of these works, made by unknown artisans. It was not about fame or wealth, though reputation brought work, and work brought income. It was about the beauty of the every day, and creating beautiful spaces in which to live, and finding value in living every day.

The light changes with the seasons, and the symbols of nature were used as themes in the architecture. These clerestory screens have sprigs of pine needles incorporated in the lattice. It was beautiful waking in the morning to the soft autumn luminescence, and the view of the leaves changing across the mountains beyond the hand made glass of the engawa. I look forward to returning again next year.