Every Bowl Tells a Story...

The earthquake in Tohoku yesterday was strong and long enough to get us jumping out of bed and ready for action, but eventually subsided without incident for us. The radio warned of a tsunami on the Tohoku coast, but we are high in the mountains of central Japan and far, far away...

...but memories of 2011, and the long road to recovery return.

When I was trying to re-establish my studio in Minakami after relocating from Mashiko, I wanted to take a step back from our modern reliance on infrastructure. I wanted to be free of fossil fuels and not dependant on electricity, to live a Mingei life, and was looking for a second hand kick wheel in Mashiko. The Hamada family gave me an old one of the workers wheels from the original Hamada Pottery, which is now the museum. I had the local garage de-rust the bearings, restored it to original condition myself and installed it in the new studio in our old farm house.

This tea bowl was made on that wheel, in the light from the window, with water drawn from our well.

Later, when the 8 chamber Noborigama at the Hamada Museum was restored, 30 Mashiko Potters were invited to fill the kiln so that it could be fired to set the repairs. Each of us had a share of the chambers, drawn by lot, and a small space in the fire mouth.

It was such a moving experience to have my pots spread out on Hamada Shoji's throwing deck, preparing the shells for the tea bowls filled with "Igusa" tatami rush.

And this was one of those bowls, rope marked in the Jomon style with silken "kumihimo" in homage to my master, Shimaoka Tatsuzo, fired in the first chamber of the Hamada noborigama for five days. You can see it still raw in the last photo, on this side of the middle board of bowls, second from the back.

There are not many of the pieces from this firing remaining now, some ten years on, but this is one of several which I will be sending to a two man show in Melbourne with my dear friend and colleague John Dermer at Skepsi Gallery next April.

There is so much to tell about this bowl, about all of the pieces from this series, that one post and a few photos barely scratch the surface...

 

Thusness

Long before humans existed, before we invented words like "beauty", long after we are gone, and every moment in between, the world, the universe, in macrocosm and microcosm, is beautiful as a matter of course. In the Bernard Leach adaptation of the writings of Yanagi Soetsu, The Unknown Craftsman, this is referred to as "thusness", the sublime and infinitely variable perfection of things as they are, as they should be, accepted and embraced without ego. We seem to forget that. To forget that we are a part of that, or to convince ourselves that we are other than that.

Instead we see ourselves as masters of the universe, imposing our will, our prejudices and preconceptions, upon nature. Our hubris. Our egos. And therein lies the source of another of our greatest inventions; Ugliness.

As a potter, working with natural materials and universal forces, I have come to understand that my greatest challenge is to not get in the way. My task is to understand the nature of those materials, their potential to interact with those forces, and to help them, guide them, facilitate their becoming. If I am successful in this endeavour, then a new expression of that "thusness" may come into being. One which also expresses my unique perspective as a fragment of nature gazing in wonder upon itself.

Breaking fast

The world turns gradually towards Winter. I open the shutters in the crisp air and pale light of predawn. Maggie, our girl cat, watches me through the lounge room window with idle curiosity as I carry an armful of wood across the cobblestones to light the stove and cook breakfast. 

From the kitchen shelf I take down the little note book which is full of all my personal recipes and open it to first entry. I separate a couple of eggs, add some sugar to each bowl, then whip the whites with a good old fashioned egg beater till they're fluffy. Adding olive oil to the yokes, I whisk them till they emulsify, whisk in some soy milk, then mix in flour with a touch of baking powder until the batter is smooth. I gently fold in the meringue, and spoon the batter into a hot, oiled frying pan on the wood stove. And while they cook, I make the coffee...

The radio is telling us the news and weather, then reporting about the glass ceiling and gender pay gap, and how hard it is for women to find meaningful and secure employment in regional areas. Mika knows first hand. We discuss it over Drop Scones with Greek Yoghurt and Yuzu Marmalade and a nice hot Cappuccino, before I see her off to work. 

I wash the dishes, put the plates in the cupboard and hang the mugs up above the kitchen window, and my making cycle is complete. You see, from the moment I start wedging the clay, I'm not just making pots...I'm making breakfast...

...lunch...

...dinner...

 

The Journey Thus Far

 Welcome to my annual exhibition at Ebiya Bijutsuten in Nihonbashi, Tokyo!

It has been my great pleasure and honour to exhibit here almost every year since 1993, save a few interruptions with natural disasters and stuff. It is very much like coming home.

Ebiya is a dealer in antiquities, and Miyake san, the 9th generation proprietor, is the loveliest person you could ever wish to meet. They've been in business since 1673, originally in Kyoto, but they came to Tokyo with the Meiji Emperor in the 1800s as Purveyors to the Imperial Household. 

During my exhibition they put most of the antiques into storage, leaving mainly the furniture, and that is where my pots are displayed. 

I have always been conscious of the longevity of my craft. The pots I make are part of a ceramic discourse which has been going on for at least ten-thousand years, and my own works will last long beyond my own life for generations to come. As such, they need to be informed by and aware of that conversation, and add to it a perspective which is unique to my lived experience and relevant to contemporary society, but also translate across time and different cultures. 

My pots tell their own story, and their presence is just as calm and self assured in the historical context of Ebiya as it is on the kitchen counter, a restaurant table, or a plinth in a modern gallery. I hope that means that they speak to our shared human experience, our common understanding of ourselves in the natural world, no matter who we are.

I invite you to come and share this moment and the pots which are a testament to my journey thus far.

https://e-ebiya.com/

In the real world

 The full moon rises huge and golden over the horizon as I pick fresh basil from Mika's kitchen garden in the fading light. It is "Juugoya", the celebration of the mid-autumn full moon, and though the days are still warm there is a chill on the evening air. 

Back in the kitchen, I use the basil to garnish tonights "Chirashizushi". Using the remaining strands of last years crop I cooked saffron rice, then blended it with vinegar and sugar to make it a fragrant sushi rice. Our saffron should be blooming in a week or two, and we usually harvest enough to last us a year. I spread the sushi rice out in a wide cylindrical bowl, one layer of a three tiered lidded set (Sandanju). I julienne Mika's last cucumber and spread it over the rice, then a layer of thinly sliced omelette, prawns, salmon, avocado and, last of all, the basil. 

I make my art for these every day moments, because that is where we live, in the real world.

The Art of Practice

The afternoon light pools softly in the freshly thrown plates, overflowing from one to another as the sun pours the last of its liquid gold over the lip of the horizon. I breathe in the cool air of the studio, rich in the fragrances of earth and wood, and exhale in a long, satisfied sigh. It has been a good day. 

Even after forty-seven years as a potter, I still find joy and revelation in the intimate dance of the clay in my hands as it spins on the wheel, each piece a new and unique expression of that interaction of the elements of nature, universal forces, and the awareness of the human mind. And just as I never tire of the beauty of a sunset, and each ephemeral iteration still takes my breath away, so, too, the life of a potter offers endless joy and inspiration. The evolution of the forms may be subtle, almost imperceptible, but is that not how nature evolves? Is that not how we grow as human beings and mature into our craft, honing our skills with deliberate practice, day by day, step by step, until they are as natural to us as breathing? Only then, when the process is second nature to us, do we truly have freedom of expression, to tell our story with immediacy and spontaneity, unhindered...and then we take a breath, and continue to practice and learn for the whole of our lives.

Mingei is a patient art, as much a work ethic as an aesthetic, rather like agriculture in many ways, and cannot be rushed. It is about us humans as part of the environment, the simple, wholesome beauty of the process and how the resulting harvest will nourish the people we love, our family, our community. Beauty is the natural state of the world, and traditional society evolved with every thing we made and used imbued with that beauty. In an increasingly industrial, technological and artificial society, where we are more and more separated from nature, from each other, from ourselves, it is the task of the artist not to put up another mirror in a maze of mirrors that already surrounds us, but to open a window, or even a door. 

The Mingei artist strives to live and work according to the same principles that were the source of beauty in the everyday functional art of traditional societies. To add their own understanding of the world and give it a form, made by hand with natural materials and conscientious of the user, which they can touch and hold and lift to their lips, and which will enrich their everyday lives, every day.

Sadly, some people just don't get that. 

Across the cobblestones

The Autumn days flow gently towards Winter, and the mulberry leaves fall in a slow moving wave as the morning sun washes across the grove, melting the frost which has briefly held them in place and casting them into the breeze. The white eyelash of a crescent moon fades into a pale blue sky. I am warm by the wood stove, the logs crackling merrily as the kettle sings, and beyond the window the voices of birds twittering in the garden form tiny puffs of steam in the icy air. I wave to Mika as she drives off to work, the car bouncing over the cobblestones. I lean closer to the window so that she can see my face, but my breath fogs up the glass.

“Each breathe exhaled a drop of rain.” That’s what my friend Robert said…

What a deeply profound a beautiful thought. Clouds of water vapour condensing in the atmosphere and returning to the earth as rain, and every breath we exhale contains enough water vapour to form a single drop. Our very breath intertwined with the turning of the seasons, each of us the consciousness of nature aware of the wonder of itself. 

It is easy to forget that we are an integral part of the natural world when modern industrial society separates us so. I recently spent a week in Tokyo, where you cannot see the stars or the moon, and the only sunlight to reach you is reflected off the mirrored glass of skyscrapers all around. Stores where there are no windows, where the air is pumped through machines. The glare of artificial light makes your eyes sting, the cacophonic blare of duelling piped music and advertising rhetoric buzz painfully in your ears, and the miasma of competing artificial fragrances from the cosmetic counters and the milling crowd makes you feel nauseous. There are no staff to greet you, you select your purchases alone, and take them to a self serve cash register where an emotionless electronic voice rasps instructions.

“Put your money in now,” she drones. 

I take some notes from my wallet and try to feed them into the mouth of the machine.

“Put your money in now,” she drones, and spits the note back out. I unfold the corner and feed it back in, then try to find the right coinage to finish the transaction.

“Put your money in now,” she drones.

“Just wait a sec, I’m trying to get the right change.” I say to her as I rummage in my wallet.

“Put your money in now,” she drones.

“Hang on, hang on!” I say, getting more flustered by the moment.

“Put your money in now,” she drones. 

I don’t have exact change, but close, so I pour the coins into the hopper. 

A few coins rattle into the tray. She spits a receipt at me.

“Take care not to forget your change and receipt.” she rasps.

I take the coins from the tray…

“Take care not to forget your change and receipt.” she rasps. An electronic bell starts to ring because I am too slow…

“Yes, yes!” I say as I put the coins into my wallet. I reach out to take the receipt…

“Take care not to forget your change and receipt.” she rasps.

“Don’t be so bloody impatient!” I say as I take the receipt from her mouth.

The bell finally stops.

“Thank you for your custom.” she simpers, then falls silent as she waits for her next victim.

Out on the streets is the constant rumble of cars and trucks and construction sites, the reek of exhaust fumes, asphalt and sewerage. The days are grey and the nights are bright, and it is never quiet, and it is never dark…and it is not just the homeless, huddled under cardboard boxes in the corners of the bridge who are alone, we are all separated from each other and our greater selves, treated like machines by machines, like cogs in the industrial mill…

Faceless… 

Replaceable… 

Now that I am home in Minakami, however, back on my side of the cobblestones, I feel human again. I have been sorting my pots from the last firing for exhibitions over the next few months, and each vessel is a unique revelation. The plates this time are particularly exciting, the poured stripes of blue-green Sasa glaze breaking into subtle pinks, against the flashed salmon body, with twisting tendrils of Igusa Hidasuki rush marks over the soft spiral throwing rings. I’m sure that they would be wonderful mounted on a wall, but how much more splendid when serving food to nourish the mind and body! As I sort through the pots, they suggest meals that they would love to have served on them, so I select a couple of plates and invite them to dinner.

Yes, every piece has been made by my own hands, but I have not been alone in the process, because the forces of nature have been my collaborators. A potter’s task is not to enslave the clay and force it to their will, but to discover the potential of the clay and guide it into a new form. Knowing when to apply your skills and when to step back and allow nature to run its course; to be still and let the clay flow through your fingers until it finds its shape; to understand the living flame of the kiln and feed it when it is hungry and give it space to breathe; this is what is to be a potter. And every pot is a discovery and an expression of the beauty of nature, not as a separate thing, but as a realisation of your self as part of the biosphere. 

Our home is surrounded by rice paddies, orchards and farms, and beyond them forested mountains marching away to snowy peaks. With a large cloth bag which my friend Kumon-san made for me, I walk the ten minutes to the local farmer’s market. I greet the neighbours as I pass; Kawai-san and Honda-san with their helpers packing boxes of apples; Fuu-chan putting out the flags in front of their noodle stand. There is a chill breeze blowing down from the Mikuni Pass, and a hawk is riding it in slow circles over the fields, hunting for the small animals that move through the stubble, nibbling on the remains of the harvest.

At the market I fill my basket with a variety of local produce, leafy Daikon and Komatsuna from Kitano-san, Honda Kazuko-san’s Yuzu, Garlic from Umezawa-san, Tomozawa-san’s Chilli Pepper, Ukon powder (turmeric) from Harasawa-san, and some Shiitake from Tsukiyono. 

“Good morning.” says the lady at the counter as I put my basket of goodies down.

“Good morning!” I reply, “Wasn’t that wind cold this morning?” I hang my empty bag over the edge of the basket as she begins passing the produce through the checkout.

“Yes, indeed! But it’s brought out the Autumn colours on the mountains beautifully!”

“They’re spectacular, aren’t they?” I say as I open my wallet and start sorting through my coins.

“That’ll be ¥2,744, thanks.” 

I put a ten-thousand yen note in the tray, “Just a sec, I may have the right change.”

She waits patiently as I fat fingeredly fumble around trying to get the exact coinage. “Close!” I exclaim, pouring a fifty yen coin and four ones into the tray.

She smiles as she gives me my change, and we exchange our thanks as I put it away, then I pack my groceries into my cloth bag, slide the empty basket into it’s rack, give her a smile and wave as I leave the market. On the way home I get a bag of apples from Honda-san, with a friendly little chat that follows a similar pattern. She pops a few extra scarred apples into the bag.

“Oh, thanks!” I say. “Say ‘Hi’ to your dad for me!”

I’ll take them a small jar of Apple Chutney later.

The hawk swoops into a dry rice paddy as I pass, rising again moments later with something small and struggling in its talons. It must be dinner time…

A home cooked meal is an intimate way of saying, “I love you.” The hand crafted vessel adds the art of nature to the everyday, and enriches the life of those who serve and those who are served. Every aspect of my life is interwoven in the creation of these works, and I am blessed to be able to share this beauty with the people I love. 

  

I wash some rice and put it in the suihanki with some ukon to cook while I prepare dinner on the wood stove. A bit of olive oil in the frypan, some garlic, ginger and chilli pepper. Onion that Mika’s father grew, some mince meat from the freezer, the green leaves from the daikon, red capsicum, apple, cumin, coriander, cloves, and cinnamon. Finally I add home made yoghurt and leave it to simmer down until it is thick, while I go and light the wood fired bath.

Mika comes home to a house full of the fragrance of spices and wood smoke, and I serve the Curry onto a bed of Turmeric Rice in my new plates. We share a goblet of white wine as we dine, and she regales about her adventures at the library. In a book it would probably say that I hang upon her every word…but that’s not quite the way it is. It is good to listen to someone that you love speak honestly and openly about all their thoughts and feelings, knowing how cathartic it can be, yourself, when someone whom you love and trust listens sincerely. Her story winds down about halfway through the second cup of wine.

“How was your day?” She asks.

I smile…