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.
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.
