Feet of Clay

When firing a wood kiln, or salt or soda, one of the challenges is preventing the feet of the vessels from sticking to the shelves. In any of these firings the atmosphere in the kiln is full of glass making materials, either as fine particles of ash or gaseous sodium trying to flux any free silica in the clay to a liquid glaze. In fact, that is our objective, and by allowing this flow of glass making materials to wash over our vessels we invite nature to glaze and decorate our work for us. It is difficult to be selective, however, about where those gases or particles flow without sacrificing the spontaneity of the glaze effect on the whole vessel. If the liquid glass flows down to the foot of the vessel, then when it cools the foot will be stuck to the kiln shelf by solid glass. This is difficult to remove without chipping the piece or damaging the kiln shelf, and such losses can become quite expensive.

There are several ways of addressing this challenge and I employ two methods in my kiln, depending on where the pots are to be placed. The first is to try to prevent the pots from sticking. My first step in this process is to design my feet so that there is a minimum amount of surface area in contact with the kiln shelf. The foot ring itself is trimmed with a chamfer on each edge so that only a thinly angled line touches the shelf. This also creates a slight overhang to help prevent fly ash from getting under the foot. When the vessel is removed from the kiln the foot ring can be touched up with some sand paper and "Viola!", a nice smooth foot ring. When I am waxing the feet of some vessels before glazing, on plates for example, I use a special wax mixture of candle wax, kerosene and a handful of alumina powder. The wax burns off in the kiln, leaving a very fine residue of alumina between the vessel and the kiln shelf. Alumina (Al2O3) is a highly refractory material, the melting point of which is about 2040C, and so it remains as a dry powder even at glaze firing temperatures, and will serve the same purpose as flour on the work bench when you are making pastry or bread, preventing sticking. Following the same train of thought, Alumina is used as a coating on kiln shelves and kiln furniture to prevent sticking, just as flour is used on the inside of a cake tin. On its own, however, alumina floats around as a powder and can stick to glaze surfaces making them matte and unattractive, so a coating mixture containing some clay material as a fixative is necessary. The mixture which I use is Alumina 2: Kaolin 1 proportionately by weight, mixed with enough water to make is a pourable creamy consistency. I put this into a watering can and pour it over the surface of the kiln shelves, then put them out in the sun to dry. After every firing I scrape any accumulated ash or soda deposits off the kiln shelves, so that they are ready to be coated again for the next firing. It is important to use a dust mask and eye protection during this process! The materials are all non toxic, but inhaling dust can cause lung disease, and chips of broken glass in the eyes should be avoided at all costs!

My other approach to this challenge is to accept that a wood or soda firing is what it is. There is going to be ash and glass dripping of the pots, and it's going to leave marks. If you are trying to avoid that and it happens by accident it can leave nasty scars on the pots. If, however, you accept it and allow it to happen as a part of the total design, those marks become cicatrices, like tribal scars, and a beautiful expression of the firing process in the finished work.

I do not use wad mix directly on the clay, as that goes in the nasty scar basket. Instead I use a ball of fire clay, rolled in alumina, stuffed inside a sea shell. A set of three, or sometimes more, of these will form a stand on which the vessel can be placed, raising it off the kiln shelf. When the kiln is fired, the salt in the shell will volatilize off leaving flashing marks on the clay. The Calcium Carbonate (CaCO3) in the shell will lose Carbon Dioxide (CO2) and become Calcium Oxide (CaO), still retaining its original structure between the vessel and the fire clay. Any glaze, ash or soda will flow into the shell structure. When the vessel is removed from the kiln and placed in a bucket of water, the Calcium Oxide (Quick lime) will rehydrate to become Calcium Hydroxide (Ca(OH)2 or Slaked Lime), and will just wash off the vessel leaving a fossil like cicatrix where it was in contact with the surface. The slaked lime goes on the compost heap. A touch up of the sharp edges left on the glaze deposit with some sand paper, and Robert is your fathers brother! This is the method I use at the fire face, where the forces of nature are most energetic and capricious. I described this process and my feelings about it in my "Art for Eternity" entry, and I invite you to read that by all means. The greatest challenge for a potter, however, is knowing when to take control, and knowing when to surrender it. It is this balance, this dance with the elements, that creates such beauty, that gives great joy to the user of these vessels, and makes being a potter such a fulfilling career.

Fire & Snow

The grey winter light filters softly through the bedroom windows as I emerge reluctantly from my warm cocoon. It is Sunday, so there is no need for Mika and the kids to surface yet. I quietly don the work clothes I put on the chair beside the bed last night, the touch of the fabric cold against my skin. I walk through the children’s room to the studio, change into my heavy work boots and step through the studio doors into the stinging cold. My boots crunch across the snowy ground as I walk to the kiln shed, the snow flakes whispering as they fall. My breath billows in clouds of vapour and forms droplets of condensation on my moustache. The clock on the shelf says 7:30 am. The pyrometer display tells me it is -16C. I hope it is wrong.

The sulphurous smell of the freshly struck match is quickly replaced by the fragrance of burning spruce as I set light to the fronds and kindling I arranged in the dual fire mouths of the kiln last night. The fire crackles as the flame climbs hungrily from twig to branch, and when it is burning well I check the top of the chimney to make sure the fire is being drawn through the kiln properly. When the first of the wood starts to crumble into embers I place five pieces of wood, cross hatched, in each fire box. Twenty minutes have passed since I lit the kiln, the pyro reads 15C. Satisfied, I return to the house to light the kitchen stove and start cooking breakfast.

The wood stove heats up quickly, warming the kitchen and living room, and the family emerges one by one. One must never waste a hot oven, especially on a cold snowy day, so I make batch of scones. Every twenty minutes I go out to stoke the kiln, and by the time the scones are cooked the kiln and the oven are both reading 180c. Scones with lashings of blueberry jam and cream, cappuccino for Mika and me, warm milk and honey for the kids. I leave the washing up to the family and go out to tend the kiln.



The snow has stopped falling, the fire in the kiln pops and crackles, the rest of the world is still and hushed. The plum trees in the garden are just beginning to bloom, and the snow decorates the blossoms with crystal mantles. The kiln gets hungrier as it heats up, rising 100C per hour, and the stokes get closer together; every ten minutes, every five..



The tribe comes rushing from the house in full winter regalia, and amid shouts, bursts of laughter and flurries of snow balls, an igloo and a giant snowman arise in the garden. Happy and exhausted, the children return to the house for lunch. The kiln has reached 6ooC, and I begin to stoke on top of the fire grates. Now the firing starts to get busy, climbing three hundred degrees in half an hour. 700... 800... 900C, I adjust the damper and the kiln starts to reduce. Mika sends Sora out with a lunch tray. "Buta-don", simmered pork on rice, with vegetables and miso soup. We drink green tea from Yunomi Chawan as we talk.




The tea is hot, 85C, when it is poured into the Yunomi, and the porcelaineous clay holds the heat well. In the west, we fill our cups with tea or coffee and they are too hot to hold, which is why we invented handles. In Japan, however, a yunomi is used. "Yunomi Chawan" (湯呑茶碗) means "Tea Bowl for Hot Water", and yet it has no handle. It is not used the same way as a "Macha Chawan" (抹茶茶碗), which is for powdered green tea in the tea ceremony. Instead, it is filled from a small tea pot to two thirds, which leaves the top third cool enough to lift between the index finger and thumb. Once lifted, it's foot is rested on the upturned fingers of the left hand, and it is lifted to the lips with both hands.



The Yunomi in this firing are designed with a change of direction at the two third mark, with a concave curve up to the rim which makes it easy to pick up with one hand. The foot is quite high, which protects the hand from the hot hip of the pot, and it's diameter is just nice to fit between the first and third joints of your fingers. Of course, people have different sized hands, and generally men's hands are larger than women's, so two sizes are made. They are called "Me-Oto" (夫婦), which means husband and wife, but the difference in size is for practical purposes, not social discrimination.





Sora sits with me as I fire the kiln, and we talk of many things. I explain to her about the trees using sunlight as energy to split the carbon dioxide in the air into carbon, which becomes the wood, and free oxygen which we need to breath. How, when I burn the wood, the flame releases the carbon and recombines it with oxygen to create energy and heat. How the hot, free carbon flows hungrily through the kiln, dragging oxygen from the materials in the clay, reducing them and changing their structure and colour. How everything in the universe is made of the same atoms, constantly combining, separating and recombining to become all the things around us, and that we are a part of that. That everything that is, always was, and always will be, it is merely changing form throughout eternity.

She is quiet for a while, as the heat of the kiln climbs and flames come blasting from the blow hole at the top of the door, like dragons tongues licking from the depths of the kiln.



"Dad," she says quietly, "What is Death?"

I look at her. "What do you think it is?" I ask.

"I don't know, really, that's why I'm asking you."

"Well," I say, smiling, "I think it's important to think about what life is first. Our bodies and all the atoms in them follow the same rules as the rest of the universe, so when we die, they change and become other things. Our spirit, our self, exists as surely as our bodies, does it not? The you that looks out through your eyes and sees the world and calls it beautiful is as real as the eyes that it looks through, but it cannot be measured. Yet it is, as much and no less as everything else that is, so how can it ever cease to be, if nothing else in the universe does?"

She nods slowly, a look of consideration on her face. The wind picks up and snow begins to fall once more. A flurry of snow flakes swirls into the kiln shed and a single flake sticks briefly to her cheek, before melting and running down to her chin like a tear drop.

I reach out and gently wipe it away. "I believe," I say,"That there is a great and universal spirit that pervades the universe, though we cannot see it nor measure it. It is like water, amorphous and all pervading. But in special circumstances, it crystallises into individual souls, like snow flakes. Every one is different, individual, special, and through all eternity it will never be repeated. For it's brief time it is the most beautiful and perfect crystallisation of the universal spirit, and though it may be surrounded by overwhelming numbers of other flakes, lost in drifts, buffeted by storms, and feels cold and alone sometimes, it partakes of the essence that is life itself and it is never really alone. And when its time is done, it will melt and return to the water from which it came, and flow once again as part of the universal spirit. It may, one day, be part of another snow flake, but the stuff of which it is made has always been and will never not be."

I hug her as the wind begins to buffet the kiln shed. "I believe that death is no more than the melting of a snow flake and it's return to the water from which it came. It is nothing to fear. What is much more important is to revel in the beauty and wonder of that snow flake, for it is unique and the miracle of its existence makes the universe a richer and more beautiful place."

She smiles at me. "Thank you, Dad. I love you."

"I love you, too." I say. "It's getting too cold out here, you'd better go inside."

The firing continues through the dusk and into the dark. Inside the kiln, as the temperature rises to 1300C, the minerals in the wood ash flying with the flames through the kiln melt into glass, and the yunomi change, vitrify, and become something new. When I open the kiln I will discover beauty that I have not made, that I have not seen before, but which has been born of the forces of nature, each vessel a new and individual expression of the beauty of nature. I feed the kiln, I listen to it and watch the flame, and I wait.

The cones are down, I believe the firing is done. I wait for it to cool to 1100C before stoking one last bundle of wood in each fire mouth and sealing the kiln. The snow has gone, the sky is clear, a crescent moon smiles down at me and the world shines in the darkness. The snow creaks beneath my feet as I go home for my supper, home in the warmth of my families embrace.

I have never really been a "chronicler" by nature. I find that I now have a lot of experiences, and things that I have learned from them, which I would like to share; And people like you seem to find them of value, which is very encouraging. Thank you.

The experiences go on though, every day, and I find myself with the conundrum of having a lot to write about and no time to write it! No words will ever compare to the actual feel of snow flakes on your skin, the smooth texture of a warm yunomi in your hand, the flavour and fragrance of green tea or the sound of children's laughter in the whispering snow.

Beneath the Masters Gate

When one becomes a "deshi"(弟子 literally "younger brother-child" but best translated as disciple) to a master potter in Japan, one is said to be beneath his gate (門下となる-monka to naru). I was fortunate to have been deshi to the National Living Treasure, Tatsuzo Shimaoka, when I first came to Japan. It was an experience which I will carry with me all my life. I would like to share with you an essay which I wrote last century (really!) which was first published in the "Studio Potter" magazine in 2001. It will help to put my last blog entry into perspective. The main studio was a rustic affair, the walls made of grey, rough hewn stone to about knee height, then hand cut timber, weathered to the same grey as the stone. Icicles hung like ornaments from the fringe of the thatched roof. I raised the wooden shutters to reveal the paper screen windows, pushed open the heavy wooden door and the paper screen behind it, and entered the gloom within.

Inside the studio was slightly warmer, though only just, as a small kerosene stove had been left on overnight to prevent the pots from freezing. I turned on the larger stove and went to fill the kettle while it primed. Removing the box from the top of the well, I cracked the ice in the top of the hand pump with my knuckle, then heaved upon the handle to free the rest of the ice. The first few gushes of water were brown and rusty, but soon it was running clear and sweet. With the kettle filled I went to remove my hand from the pump, only to find that my glove had frozen to the handle. I peeled it off with a slight tearing sound and went back inside to set the kettle on the stove.




As a deshi, my next job was to sweep the grounds before the workers arrived. The broom was made of hardy rushes and a bamboo handle, not an elegant tool, but sturdy and functional. Beginning with the immediate surrounds of sensei's house I worked my way back through the compound cleaning up any unsightly leaves and clearing the paths of hoarfrost. I'd never seen hoarfrost before I came to Mashiko, as where I come from in Australia, it never got that cold. Millions of ice needles would form a thick, glistening carpet across the barren ground. A sweep of the broom would leave a glittering swathe, like the stroke of an artists brush.




Eventually the workers would arrive, elderly men and their wives, simple folk in simple farming attire. Indeed, they all had farms which they worked in the spring when the ground had thawed. Of the six of them, only one had a drivers licence. They had worked all their lives at Shimaoka's, lived within walking distance of the pottery, and would retire and grow old in Mashiko. Their children’s lives were different, many of them drawn to the bright lights of Tokyo, like most of their generation. Their world was brighter and broader than their parents, but somehow shallow and trite by comparison. The quiet dedication of the old workers was alien to the new world, but as regular and natural as the seasons. They would greet me in the garden as they passed, with a smile and a brief, "Good morning, cold isn't it?" then shuffle off to the studio to gather round the stove till starting time. When I had finished my chores I would join them briefly, then the days work would begin.




At a signal from the foreman, the oldest of the workers, everyone would scatter to their allotted space to perform their daily routines. Fukuyan would start press moulding, perhaps water drippers for calligraphy, perhaps square bottle forms for ikebana. Sabuyan, axe in hand, would make his way to the wood shed and split logs for the next firing. The women would settle themselves into their habitual spots and start trimming the slip inlayed rope decoration. Mitsuyan, the head thrower, Hamada, the other deshi, and I would go to our wheels and set to making whatever of sensei's forms he had assigned to us.

As I had only been at Shimaoka's for a month or so at that time, I was still making green tea cups, the standard shape that all deshi make in their first year. I was given an example piece, which sat on the wheel bench in front of me, and I made that shape until I got it right. There was no deadline. I had been working in potteries for twelve years before I was lucky enough to be introduced to Shimaoka sensei and for the first time in my life the only consideration was quality. I had learnt to throw in Australia with a stop watch beside the wheel. Yet here, speed and quantity were absolutely irrelevant. After a days throwing, first Mitsuyan would carefully scrutinize the work, picking up one, then another, feeling the weight, looking at the shape, checking the wall thickness. Anything that wasn't quite right would be set aside to be remade the following day. After his editing was done, Sensei himself would go through the same process. In the beginning, I was sometimes left with only ten percent of my days work in tact. "Too thick," he would say, "Too thin", or "Too fat". I was often left confused about the correct shape. So I would start again, each day thinking, maybe today, maybe today.




This day was no different. Taking about ten kilo of clay I began to knead, one hundred times this way, one hundred the reverse. When it was ready I threw it on the wheel and prepared to start. The wheel was the simplest design, just a wooden wheel head and a wooden fly wheel balanced on a steel shaft, pushed around by foot. I removed my shoes and socks, avoiding standing on the bare earth floor, and began to rotate the wheel. All the throwers worked in bare feet, mainly for better traction on the fly wheel, but also to save wear on the wood. After the first hour or so the act of constantly kicking got the blood circulating through your feet and it wasn't too bad.




The same applied to your hands. Everyone topped up their water bowls from the kettle that I had put on first thing in the morning, so by the time it got around to me it was empty. I would refill it and replace it on the stove and make do with the water I had. Once I had removed the ice from my bowl it wasn't long before it warmed up, along with the clay, just from the heat of my hands. It was fascinating to watch the tendrils of steam rising off my hands as I formed the pots, spiraling up and then vanishing into thin air. And the air was so dry. The combination of the cold and the dryness, the constant wetting and drying of my hands, cracked the skin on my fingers so that there was nothing I could do without them opening up and bleeding. Still, work had to be done, so I persevered, blood or not, and the pain, like the mist, would eventually fade.




The day was punctuated by tea breaks, morning and afternoon, of green tea and pickled radish, or sometimes rice crackers. Lunch was a tin of salmon, some vinegared rice and seaweed. Conversation round the stove filled the dark emptiness hanging over us in the cavity of the thatched roof. Not a soul spoke English, and occasionally Hamada, who came from the neighbouring prefecture, would translate pieces of Mashiko dialect that I didn't understand into standard Japanese for me. I was never without a dictionary, but much of my Japanese was mastered by studying Kanji scratched in the dirt floor.




Towards the end of day Sensei entered the main studio. His personal studio was separate and slightly newer, and he would work there undisturbed, calling for us when there were pots to move or clay to knead. I treasured those times when I was able to be assisting him in his studio, watching him work, talking with him. He is a man of few words. The atmosphere changed when he entered the room, everyone suddenly self conscious and ready to jump to his requests. Not that he is an overbearing figure, to the contrary, he is a serene and dignified man, and I have never once heard him raise his voice, nor speak in anger. He simply commands respect, with quiet, calm assertion.




He began to examine my tea cups silently, picking them up at random, feeling their balance, holding them up to see their silhouette against the paper screen, then putting them down and going to the next board. I had made eighty cups that day, and when he had finished, eighty remained.




"Good," he said, "next week you may make coffee sets. Mitsuyan will teach you." and with that he left the studio, and the sound of his wooden sandals could be heard moving across the pebbled driveway to the house. I looked over at Mitsuyan, who grinned and said "Good," just as sensei had. Hamada smiled at me and said "Congratulations". That was all. Yet somehow my world had changed. In that moment, I almost felt as if I belonged.




The working day was over, and we turned off the main stove and set the small one for the night. Hamada and I closed the shutters, and the box was replaced on the well. The workers and their wives turned towards their homes in pairs with calls of, "Good night," and, "Thank you for your efforts today".




Indeed, it was night when work finished, and as I closed the door of the studio the darkness was almost complete. I waited there for a moment until my eyes had adjusted, and looked up at the cloudless sky. The stars were pale and sparse, and for a moment I thought of the sea of stars that washes across the night sky of home. With a shiver, perhaps only of cold, I pushed that thought aside and made my way back down the hill to my paper and plywood domicile, another day complete, another frozen night ahead, and tomorrow the ritual would begin again.....




It has been twenty years since I studied at Shimaoka's, but I have remained in Mashiko. I live in an old farm house with my wife and children, and work towards an ideal that was alive at Shimaoka's. My work and my life will never be like his, nor should they be. Shimaoka sensei passed away in 2007 at the age of 88. His work was an expression of the man, and we are different men. But I will carry with me what he taught me for all my days, the beauty of the object springing from the beauty of the process, and quality above all. And the stop watch? I stopped watching years ago.

Far Enough East

It is quiet in the studio this morning as I throw yunomi. The children are off at their various schools, Mika has gone to work at her new job as assistant to the curator at the Mashiko Museum of Ceramic Art and I have the house to myself. The kettle whispers on the stove and the fire occasionally pops and crackles. Just me and the clay in the pale winter light. As I relax into the rhythm of making these shapes, allowing the amorphous clay to find it's form within the forces at work upon it on the wheel, I remember my first years here in Japan. What was once alien and exotic has become so familiar.

Yesterday I was invited to the elementary school to give the children there a talk about Mashiko Pottery. Next month there will be a follow up seminar with thirty or so teachers from the area, with myself, the head of the Mashiko Tourism Association and the Vice President of the Mashiko Pottery Retailers association heading a panel discussion. Last night I sat opposite the boys at the kitchen table, helping them with their homework. Occasionally I would reach across the table and correct their kanji, upside down. I suddenly realize that in just a few days I will have been in Japan for twenty-one years.

The differences which seemed so significant when I first came here were only superficial after all. The customs and language which bind a race or culture together are only a veneer of commonality that allows them to interact with each other. Beneath that veneer are individuals as diverse in personal values, belief and perspective as in whatever community or family you find yourself in. One needs only to think about how different siblings can be to understand that. Beyond that, however, underpinning our sense of self, is our common humanity. Regardless of race, creed or language, we humans share our need to love and be loved, we all find beauty in the wonder of nature, we are all moved by kindness. We have more in common than we realise most of the time, but we get confused by superficialities. As long as people keep on insisting that there is a difference between East and West, no number of bridges will be enough.

I cut the next Yunomi from the wheel and discover that the ware boards are full, and I have no place to put it. I suppose it must be time for tea. And whether the people who eventually use these cups drink green tea or earl grey, coffee or oolong tea, the hand that holds the cup will be a hand like yours or mine, the lip that drinks from it a lip like the one you love. There are those who romance about the mystic East, but I have discovered that if you go far enough East, you arrive back home.

Merry Christmas

'Tis the night before Christmas, and all through the house,

Not a creature is stirring......

The children have had their stir of the Christmas pudding, made their wish and gone off to bed, and now the pudding sits steaming on the wood stove, two hours gone, two more to go. While they sleep and dream of Father Christmas the tree lights up the lounge room. We bought this tree as a seedling when we moved to this house, and we bring it inside every Christmas. Before long it will reach the ceiling, and then we shall take it out of its pot and plant it into the ground, and we shall buy a new tree. It has grown with the children, and we all take great pleasure in decorating it every year.

The star atop out tree is not gold, but it is precious to us. I made it when the kids were small, and one day they will tell their children, "You're Da made that!" I am in no hurry for that day to come, because each year my children hunt through the decorations for "Daddy's Star", and the tree is only finished when I put the star in place.




Christmas is not complete without Mika's wreath hanging beside the door. She uses the prunings from our cypress trees, and holly from the local community hall garden (Yes, she even asked permission!).


In the morning, if the children have been good of course, their stockings will be full of presents, the last job for Father Christmas before he goes to bed.


So, whither so ever scattered over the earths broad surface you may be, I wish you a peaceful and blessed Christmas.


Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

Just My Cup of Tea

I was sitting with Miyake san in the tea room, enjoying macha from some of my new bowls. This is where my tea ware is really tested, and we have done so every year. Tomorrow we will be having a tea ceremony here with fifteen Japanese guests and we are selecting the bowls today from those which I have in the exhibition. Some are better for summer than this cold autumn day, and some might be better on the lawn under the cherry blossoms in spring, but the choice of bowl is an expression of the tea masters sense, and there are plenty to choose from. As we talk I remember other days in this room, other bowls and conversations. A couple of seasons ago I wrote an essay about such a day, and I share it again with you here, with some photos of this years exhibition.

Just My Cup Of Tea

Sitting in the tea room at the back of the gallery, I listen to the whisper of the water as it simmers in its iron kettle on the charcoal brazier. Its lid is slightly askew, leaving a gap at the edge which stops the water from boiling over. The mid morning light filters through the paper of the shoji screens to softly illuminate the tatami floor.

In the Tokonoma alcove is a bottle shaped vase with a single blossom. “Hidasuki” straw marks circle its neck and drape down the side where the wood flame has hit the porcelain surface. Beside it on the wall is a “kakejiku” scroll. It is a painting from the Edo period of the view of Nihombashi from the street outside. The merchants bustle about between what has now become the Mitsukoshi department store on the left and the Mitsui bank on the right, with the road between them leading up to Edo Castle, now the imperial palace, and Mount Fuji in the background. Usually the kakejiku would be calligraphy, a poem or phrase in Kanji characters, but Miyake san has chosen this painting because it is of where we are, an echo of the past which lives on in the tradition of the tea ceremony. Among the characters bustling in the street scape is a merchant carrying a large chest wrapped in a furoshiki cloth on his back. I joke with Miyake san that this is his great grandfather moving to Nihombashi from Kyoto with the Meiji emperor in 1868.

The writing was on the wall. It said;

“By Appointment to the Imperial Household

Ebiya Art Gallery

Dealers in Tea Ceremony Wares and Antiquities

Since 1672”



On the mat in front of me, on one of my small square plates, is an exquisite “Mame Daifuku”, a cake of sweet bean encased in rice paste. These are from the same shop in Ueno where I first tasted them, and though I have had them from other makers since, none compare with these.



Miyake san enters the room with a tray, his soft white footware brushing gently across the tatami. On the tray are arranged tea bowl (Machawan), tea caddy (Natsume), whisk (Chasen) and bamboo spoon (Chashaku). He bows deeply and then carries them to the space in front of the brazier.

In the back of my mind I can hear my mothers voice, “Take the pot to the kettle, dear, not the kettle to the pot.”

The tea room at Ebiya is unusual in that the brazier is in the back left corner, meaning that many of the actions must be done in mirror image of a normal tea ceremony. “Ki An” is the title of the tea room. It is difficult to translate, as the “Ki” means to return home, and the “An” means tea house. This is especially significant for me. When I came to Japan I had to choose kanji characters for my own name, as stamps, not signatures, were necessary for all legal documents. It meant giving new meaning to my self. The kanji I chose were “Yu” which is glaze, and “An”, the same kanji as the tea room, to which I have returned every year since 1993. This tea room, at the back of the gallery in the centre of Tokyo, is where I sleep during the exhibition, and I prepare my breakfast over the brazier and welcome guests into my home here. This tea room is a home to which I can return.



Removing a cloth from the “Obi” sash of his kimono, unfolding and refolding it, he begins to meticulously clean the tools on the tray. First the natsume, then the chashaku are wiped and replaced on the tray, each movement economical and elegant. The chasen and “chakin” (tea cloth) are removed from the bowl, and he begins to wash it. Setting the lid straight on the kettle he lifts it and pours some hot water into the bowl. After replacing the kettle he lifts the Chasen, examines it, whisks the water, turns the chasen to examine it again, and replaces it on the tray. He then empties the water from the tea bowl into a “Kensui” bowl that he had prepared behind him. The Kensui is taller and wider than a chawan, flared at the top to accept the discarded water. Using the chakin he wipes the bowl dry, four strokes which cover the base of the bowl and spell the word “Iri”, to “put care” into an action.

“Always warm the pot with hot water first, dear, before you make the tea,” says mums melodious voice.

As he lifts the Chashaku, he turns to me with a smile. “Okashi o douzo,” he says, please enjoy your cake. I lift the plate from the floor, cut a piece of the “Daifuku” with my cake blade and place it in my mouth. These are one of my favourite cakes, the soft sweetness of the coarsely ground bean inside playing against the slight springy resistance of the rice paste casing, with just a hint of salt.

Mum used to serve the best scones with lemon curd and cream for morning tea, the savoury flavour of the fresh baked scone, the tartness of the lemon, the saltiness of the butter, the smoothness of the cream…….

As I eat, Miyake san removes the lid from the natsume and spoons out some bright green powdered tea into the bowl with the chashaku, striking it gently but sharply against the edge of the bowl to shake off any clinging powder. Each year he has a special delivery of macha made from the first leaves of the new crop, the “Shincha”. The colour is more vivid than most tea, the fragrance lighter, the flavour sweeter.

There was one brand of tea that Mum insisted on. “All the others taste like the sweepings from the teahouse floor!” she’d say, “Now, one spoon for each person and one for the pot….”

Pouring the water once more into the bowl and replacing the kettle on the brazier, he lifts the chasen and begins to whisk the tea. Making a bridge from rim to rim with the thumb and middle finger of his left hand he vigorously whisks the tea into a foam, finally slowing to a stop and gently lifting the chasen from the bowl. After putting the chasen back on the tray he lifts the bowl with his right hand onto the palm of his left, turns it twice, perhaps a quarter turn each time, until the front of the tea bowl faces me. He reaches out and places it wordlessly on the tatami in front of me.

“Always turn the pot three times in a clockwise direction,” says mum….

“Chodai itashimasu,” (I gratefully receive this) I say as I reach out with my right hand and slide my fingers under the hip of the bowl till I touch the foot, place my thumb on the lip and lift it to the palm of my left hand. The foot fits comfortably between the first and third joints of my fingers, smooth against my skin. I also turn it twice, till the face of the bowl is now towards him and then move the fingers of my right hand to the side of the bowl. After a slight bow, I lift it to my lips. The colour of the green tea against the orange flashing on the wood fired surface lift each other, and the warm fragrant fumes waft across my face. The lingering sweetness in my mouth from the daifuku mingles with the spicy flavour of the tea. There is no other flavour to which it can be likened. It is macha.

I finish the tea and smile in satisfaction as I lower the bowl. The last skerrick of tea runs down into the throwing rings in the centre of the bowl, making a green spiral against the flashed porcelain, like the ying and yang. I wipe the lip and turn the bowl once more so that I can see the face, where the “hidasuki” marks of the tatami straw mingle with the wood ash where the flame has licked the surface and begun to form runnels. I invert the bowl to examine the foot, the turned surface distinct from the thrown, with shell marks on the foot ring from where it was set in the kiln. I turn the bowl once more and pass it back to Miyake san, who has been waiting, watching, patiently.

He takes the bowl once more, washes it as before and says to me, “Moh ippuku ikaga desu ka?” (Would you care for another cup?) I waver for a moment, then reply, “Iie, oshimai kudasai.” (No, please feel free to finish.)

He bows. “Oshimai itashimasu.” (I will draw to a close.) He pours hot water in the bowl once more, this time to wash the chasen, which he examines carefully to make sure it is clean and undamaged. After disposing of the water in the kensui once more he wipes the bowl and places it on the tray. He wipes and replaces the chashaku and natsume into their correct position on the tray, refolds his cloth and tucks it back into his obi. Rising to a crouch, he lifts the tray, stands, and shuffles quietly from the room, kneeling to bow deeply at the door.

I wait quietly for his return, savouring the calm, alone for a moment once more with the kettles song. It is easy to forget that the bustle of central Tokyo is only metres away. Just on the other side of the shoji screens, beyond the display windows, crowds throng and traffic oozes along the “Chuo Doori”(central road) to and fro across Nihombashi, the bridge of Japan. The river which runs below it is named after the bridge. The centre of the bridge marks the geographical centre of Japan, and the imperial palace is just a short stroll away.

He returns with the bowl and places it in front me.

“Doh?” (How was it?) I ask.

He smiles. “Hijouni tsukaiyasui!” (Very comfortable to use!) he says enthusiastically. “The shape and surface make it very easy to foam the tea, and the size fits the hand exactly. Did you see how the colours worked together?” I smile and nod. We sit and examine the bowl again, dissecting it, holding it and turning it. Discussing how it fits in the hand, how stable it was to whisk the tea, how beautifully it enhanced the tea. We have done this every year, and I have learned about tea. It isn’t just the bowl. It’s the entirety of the ceremony that is art, art in process. I would never pretend to be a tea master, for to become a tea master is a life long dedication. No, I am just a potter who is a student of tea at best.

The tea ceremony isn’t an arcane mystery, it is an exploration of the beauty of simplicity. It touches all your senses, gently, with no embellishment. How simply, beautifully and most of all deliciously can you make a cup of tea? For that is the essence of a tea bowl, not a rigid structure of size or form or colour, not a regurgitation of how other tea bowls are, but a foray into the pleasure of a nice cup of tea.

It is the morning of my fourteenth annual exhibition here at Ebiya Gallery, and the doors will soon be open for business. But for this little time Miyake san and I have it to ourselves. We step from the tea room into the main gallery space, with my pots displayed on its antique furnishings. Later I will wrap the teabowls in saffron cloth and sign boxes for them, sealing them with my Japanese stamp. And hopefully they will come to life in someone elses hands and give them joy in using them, just as I have taken joy in their making.

And somewhere in the back of my mind, “There’s nothing like a nice hot cup of tea.” Say’s mum…

Opening Day

The customers have gone; I am alone. Midnight has just passed and the five antique clocks which hang on the walls of Ebiya Gallery just struck sixty o'clock. It was a quiet opening, partly due to the fact that the advertising didn't start till Thursday, but also because that is what I wanted this time.

I had prepared half the exhibition two months ago, but there were always those other vessels that I wanted to make....and so the Mashiko Pottery festival came and went, and the shelves were full of pots waiting to be fired. I selected the best 400, and stacked the kiln. After over 200 wood firings I know where the flame will flow, where the ash will fall, where the clouds of vapour will caress the surface of the vessels. Using sea shells and Igusa straw I stacked the pots, and when the kiln was full I sealed it up and prayed. My skill is only a fraction of the finished pot, for at every stage I am borrowing the forces of nature and adding to them a purpose. It is the nature of matter, of amorphous clay, to find a shape which will bring balance, peace and harmony within the parameters of the natural forces at work upon it. It is the nature of humanity to be nature self aware, to recognise the beauty of nature and express it with our own unique voice. But we cannot control nature, we can only guide it, and it is only by surrendering control to the greater power of the universe that our endeavours can find true beauty in form. And so I fire my kiln, knowing about how carbon and oxygen and hydrogen and sodium will all play their parts, but understanding that the kiln, the flame, will tell me when it needs more wood, or  less draft, or more air.

Sean, with all the wisdom of a five year old, asked if he could help. "Of course", I said, though the kiln was seething at volcanic temperatures. "Can you count to 5?" I asked.

"Yes." said a confident small voice.

"Then please pass me five pieces of wood."

And so he did, and he arranged them in rows, and passed them to me when I needed them, and the firing belonged to him as well. When the pots emerged from the kiln they were his pots also, and they were the most beautiful pots I have ever made.

Beauty is not a noisy thing. It is quiet and strong and gentle.

I sit in the gallery alone, but not lonely at all, for these pots are born of my love of life, and each is a voice singing softly to my soul. All of my experience, those I have loved and who are gone, those who love me and give me strength, those who wait for my return, are part of these quiet pots, and I will sleep in peace tonight.