The Golden Drop

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!

Countdown

It is only seven weeks till my next major event. Mitsukoshi department store has invited my to exhibit at their main store in Nihombashi from September 30th till October 20th. Coinciding with the exhibition, Kappo Toyoda will be serving a special "Euan" course in their evening menu. After having discussions with Hashimoto san, the chef, I produced a range of prototypes which we then used in a photo shoot on saturday last.

The results were amazing, and I can hardly wait to share them with you. However, let us not get carried away. I am going to show then to you one course/one vessel at a time, as I make them. You see, even though we've done the photo shoot, only the prototypes are finished. The actual pots for the meal (20 place settings) and the exhibition (enough to last three weeks in the premiere department store in Japan) are yet to be completed!

This week I focused on square plates. I have purposely placed these at the fire face to get heavy ash and soda deposits. On its own the plate seems a bit lonely, but that is because it was designed to hold food, therefore without food it is incomplete.

Once the food is served, however, it comes to life.

These plates are first thrown on the wheel with 1.2kg of clay as a wide rimmed 24cm dish. After they are trimmed I will cut them square. I threw 80 of them today, and, with the other 200 pieces I made this week, my shelves are full.

Being summer the humidity is high, so I will have to wait for a few days before I can continue. Which is fine, because the kids are on school holidays and they need me too.

G'DROP

Happy New Year everyone!

It has been a busy and exciting time since my last entry. My last big job for the year was an order for the wine bar and restaurant in Nihombashi, G'Drop. You may have read about it in Ceramics Monthly. From January 5th till the end of March the restaurant will be serving all of their cuisine on my dishes. The prices are very reasonable and the food is delicious. They are open for lunch and dinner, Monday to Friday.

Earlier in the year I began making prototypes for this restaurant, but we only nailed down the final designs and numbers at the start of December, only three weeks before we were to go to Australia! So ensued a marathon production cycle, which included an emergency increase in shelving.

It is hard to explain the sheer volume of work involved in producing a range of twelve designs for a sixty seat restaurant. In order to ensure 100% "A" grade work sometimes twice the number of pots need to be made.

I got the order finished and delivered on the day before we left, still warm from the kiln.

We then went to Australia for two weeks with my family and a great adventure for the kids.

When we got back there was a message on the phone... they had started using the pots and the response was great! But they needed to talk to me about the pots. So the day after we got home I drove the family down for lunch in Nihombashi.

The food was fantastic, and especially exciting for the kids as all the pots were made by Daddy! It turned out that what the restaurant needed to talk to me about was MORE POTS! The menu has expanded from the original plan and they need more pots for the extra course.

They would also like to do a signature dinner event in early February where our guests can enjoy the food and dishes with the Miyake and Craig families. More information as it comes to hand!

So it's back to the wheel where I belong.

YANONE

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.

Puttin' on the Ritz

I was recently priveledged to receive an order from a very prestigious hotel. Apparently one of their valued guests was in search of a special, personalised gift. I was honoured to receive the commission.

The result was this left handed "Kyusu" japanese tea pot, with two matching cups. A kyusu has a handle one one side, and it is very rare to find one which can be used in the left hand. You may remember the cups from an earlier blog entry.

On each peice we have fired the logo of the hotel in gold and under the foot of each peice we have fired on the name of the customer and date.

We received a lovely note telling us how pleased the client was with the result. It has been well worth the effort.

(With special thanks to Mashikoya)