The Ebiya exhibition was a great success, so busy in fact that I had no time to take photographs. My focus this year was on pottery for my family, for my own home, that I would like to use myself. For the last few years I have been doing collaborations with chefs and it has been a major influence on my work to design for professional use.
Even though this years theme was for more domestic ware, several restaurants from Nihombashi took interest in my new work this year, and a number of substantial orders have sprung from it. The first is for lidded bowls for "hamaguri suimono" (clam broth) for the "Yanone" (Arrowroot) shushi restaurant. The lids I usually make double as small plates, but the chef wants the lids to be just lids this time. I sketched up a design for him before I left Tokyo on Monday, calculating the shrinkage and defining the details.
I have just started trimming them today, and it is interesting to note the slight differences between the two dimensional drawing and the three dimension pot. Particularly the knob on the lid needed to be adjusted to give structural strength to the curve and prevent warpage.
On the foot are the mark of the ebiya gallery, the mouse for 2008, my logo mark and an arrow which symbolises Yanone.
Euan,
ReplyDeleteThanks for your ruminations on Art and Sacrifice. I was trying to "understand" a couple of your images: 1) what looks like oyster shells on a grill - what am I looking at here? and 2) on your lidded bowls and your goblets, there is a repeating pattern - how did you impress this?
I can never leave the surface of my work alone - it begs for design, dimples, impressions. hence my curiosity.
Thomas
Hi Thomas,
ReplyDeleteThanks, the shells on the grill are Turbo or Turban Shells, in japanese they are called "Sazae". The charcoal grill is called a "shichirin". It was invented during the edo period and was advertised as being able to cook rice with only "shichi rin" (seven "rin", the currency at the time) worth of charcoal.
The pattern on the surface of the pots is called chattering. It is a very ancient technique. I use a peice of spring steel to produce the pattern. I will put up a blog entry later describing the technique in detail.
Thanks again for your comment, I'll try and get a "Chattering" post up soon.
Euan