New Goblets

Each year my wine goblets evolve. Miyake san at Ebiya Gallery has been collecting them since my first exhibition, so this year I have made them with an ebi on them. Ebi is the japanese word for the prawn/lobster/shrimp family, and for some reason which is lost in the annals of history the Miyake sans gallery "Ebiya" translates as "Prawn vender".

I have made the bodies more enclosed this year, and added a change of direction in the stem.

The body is turned first, effectively the same as a Yunomi, but with a very narrow foot.

A texture is marked with a needle tool.

Then a small amount of water is spread on the surface.

The stems, which have been thrown like a small bottle, are dipped just on the rim in water then attached to the body which is still on the wheel.

The bottom of the stem is then cut out.

Chattering is the last step on the wheel.

After I stamp them with my logo and the mouse, I mark them with a roulette in a curve around the body.

Every line should have a start and an end, so I confirm the start with a pegging tool.

The end of the line is the "Ebi", swimming around the side of the pot.

I do hope Miyake san is pleased!

SPACE; The Final Frontier

Alas, the shelves are full. There is no room for another tea bowl or sake cup. I take this as a message from destiny that it is time to stop making. The last three days have been my final making spurt. With my Ebiya exhibition I always strive to keep making up until the death knock, because for me it is a chance to share with people my newest work. An exhibition isn't just a sale, it is an opportunity to put out my best work. Assuming that I am always learning and growing, then now is my best time and these are my best works. I have of course selected a body of work already, which are numbered and boxed ready to go, but I hope the best work will come from the last firing.

On monday I put handles on all of the pitchers, which are now dry, ready to glaze. The position of the point where the handle springs from the pot changes depending on the size of the pot. The smaller pitcher has the handle spring from the lip, giving enough space to hold the handle comfortably. The larger pitchers have the handle come from below the rim, which changes the centre of gravity making them easier to pour. I'm looking forward to getting them out of the kiln next week.

Lovely Lips

It is only two weeks until my exhibition at Ebiya Gallery in tokyo, and I'm into my last spurt of making. For the last few years I have been doing a collaborative dinner at the same time as the exhibition, but this year we have decided to do the dinner in a different season. I am therefore able to focus more on some pieces which are not related to a specific meal but which I just like to make.



I enjoy making jugs, for example, and don't make them as often as I'd like. They are not used so much in Japan, and most of the Japanese purchasers would use them as vases, but I make them to be functional. One of the points is of course the spout. I feel that a pulled spout pours well and is very beautiful.



The rim must be left slightly thicker than other forms. This thicker rim is then thinned out by first wetting it and then pinching and smoothing a section of the rim into a raised flange. Timing is important, as the pot fresh from the wheel may be too soft and the pot can distort or collapse. If the clay is too hard it will be hard to thin and manipulate and is prone to cracking. I usually wait until the sheen has left the pots, which is usally about 4 or 5 hours depending on the humidity. Ideally I would make the bodies in the morning and then spout them in the afternoon or evening. Yesterday I didn't finish the bodies till late afternoon and they were still too soft before bedtime, so I got to them first thing this morning (before the kids got up!).



Once the flange is raised, smooth the edge with a piece of soft leather, then support the outside on either side of the spout with your off hand and gentle push the spout out with the finger of your other hand. After the spouts are pulled leave the pots to dry, trim, handle and finish as normal.




There has always been debate about the ideal angle of a spout. I have found that a smooth upward curve pours well and doesn't usually dribble. Other believe that a spout should curve right over past the horizontal so that the last drip hangs on the edge without running back. I have found those spouts too prominent are prone to spreading the flow instead of focussing it and susceptible to chipping.




The Japanese phrase for something that is easy is "Asa meshi mae" which means "before breakfast". I managed to get all of them and some turning done before breakfast, which probably only means it's easier to get work done while the kids are still in bed. We enjoyed our famous Craig Dropscones with delicious Acacia honey direct from an apiarist in Nikko. 100% pure, it is clear enough to see your vegemite through.

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)

Boys Day

Tomorrow is "Kodomo no Hi", which means "Childrens Day" but is more of a holiday for boys. Each household displays carp shaped flags or streamers to declare that they have healthy sons.

I imagine it was originally advertising for other peoples healthy daughters.

The first flag is called the "Fukinagashi" and represents a river. It bears the family crest, or in our case two family crests. Mika's is a stylized plum blossom.

The Craig crest is a knight with a broken lance with the declaration "J'ai bonne esperance", I am of good hope. It's a long story.

Mashiko Pottery Festival

It's that time of year again! Every spring the streets of Mashiko are lined with hundreds of tent displays by potters from not only Mashiko but all over Japan.



Last year 300,000 visitors passed through the festival. It is a chance for potters to display their work in front of a wide and varied audience, and for the public to meet the artists and obtain their works at direct to the public prices!



For ten days the exhibitors brave the elements, and I for my part try to make it as enjoyable as possible. It is important to have all the comforts home, like a charcoal brazier for toasting your lunch.



It also comes in handy for making the occasional pot of coffee.




But when push comes to shove, we all know the most important ingredient in any successful outdoor event. Yes, that's right folks...Ice!



So Cheers everyone, and if you in this neck of the woods, stop in for a pint.

Vulcan

It is interesting to note that the Lava flowing from the volcano in Hawaii has a temperature of about 1200 degrees centigrade, whereas the temperature inside my wood fired kiln is 1300 c. Effectively I have a man made volcano in my back yard. (Photo; Sakurai Mitsuyo/桜井光代)


It isn't really such a strange thought. The glazes which I apply to my pots are mixtures of powdered minerals, rocks if you like, which I am trying to melt into a glass. The last time they were molten was when they were either lava or magma, so it stands to reason that the temperature which I need to achieve should be the same. Hotter in fact because I am trying to achieve geological effects in human time scales.



In this last firing I included some rock glaze tests. The traditional Mashiko Kaki glaze is made from the powder of one rock, a local stone formed from volcanic ash called "Ashinuma Ishi". Ashinuma, where it comes from is a five minute walk up the road, and many of the storehouses and building foundations in this area were built from this stone, including our house and the shed which burnt down. A mashiko potter many years ago used some of this rock to close his kilns firemouth after a firing, and when he opened the kiln the rock had fluxed into a beautiful iron rust glaze. It wasn't long before it became the signature mashiko glaze, and because of its similarity in colour and surface to the seeds of the persimmon, it was dubbed "Kaki" glaze by Hamada. It is no longer being mined, and the Mashiko cooperative will only sell the remaining reserves to members. HOWEVER....as I just mentioned, the foundations of the shed which burnt down were built from this stone. One wonders how much of this glaze would be used in one potters lifetime. I put a sample into the kiln as a control, which you can see here. It is usually applied over a "Nami jiro" standard white glaze, but I have applied it over my porcelain clay.



The question which I ask myself is, Does tradition lie in the materials and tools which are used or in the spirit in which they are used? Every tradition has at some point started as a cutting edge development, the repetition of which over generations becomes "Tradition" with a capital "T". The risk is that subsequent generations will make copies of old works which are no longer appropriate in a contemporary context, anachronisms which lack the spirit and relevance of the original works. If the tradition lies in the spirit of the process, the use of natural local materials which are inexpensive and readily available, to create work which is relevent to the society in which it is made, then change itself becomes tradition. What we consider local now, places we can flit to within the hour, may have been days of travel away a century ago. And so I have begun to experiment with some different "local" materials.



Just on the other side of Utsunomiya, the prefectural capital, about 40km from here, is a place called Oya. Oya stone, a vesicular stone once again formed from volcanic ash, has been quarried for centuries for building purposes throughout Japan, particularly the Kanto area. It is hugely abundant, far more so than Ashinuma stone, and is easily worked with hand tools, being light and porous. It is sawn into blocks, and the dust from the sawing process is freely available. When you mix the dust with water, apply it to a pot and fire it to 1300 it looks like this.



To the south of Mashiko in the neighbouring prefecture there are large deposits of Granodiorite in Iwase and Makabe. This is a much harder rock, very much like granite, but it contains a plagioclase (sodium) feldspar rather than an orthoclase (potassium) feldspar. It also contains quartz and muscovite and has a large crystalline structure. It cooled slowly underground which allowed the different minerals to separate and crystalize independently, giving it a distinctive appearance. The dust from these quarries is also cheap or free and there are mountains of the stuff. It looks like this. (You may notice that nature has left the message "CRAP" in black muscovite flakes in the left corner of the picture, this has not been tampered with!) The glaze is a smooth transparent toffee type glaze, similar to traditional "Ame".



I don't know whether I will ever use these glazes, but the point is that they are there. Simple, inexpensive and functional. Similar materials are available virtually anywhere in the world, probably around the corner from you, just waiting for a potter with a personal volcano to bring out the best in them.