Oribe? I'm not sure but it is cool to use!

Sorry I have not posted in quite some time, but I decided to write up notes on another piece I made in the Anagama kiln.   Looking at the interior of this wan the only guess I have as to the glaze used is an oribe glaze, but well you tell me.



While yes there is a good amount of green inside, there is a heck of a lot of purple.  It honestly reminds me of an odd imitation of a Japanese Sansai glaze, though this appears far more glassy than Yamane Seigan's and has a fair bit of crackling in the glaze ( oddly looks like a Celadon that has weird purple hues to it).  While the shape certainly leaves much to be desired, as I think the hardest thing about pinchwork pottery is not having a good guess at how the clay will behave in the firing because it underwent such odd torques and twists in the forming, not to mention often has less than uniform thickness all over the piece.




I forget exactly how far back this piece was placed,but looking at it again, most the unglazed exterior is mostly bare of ash deposits my guess is this had to be somewhat far back in the kiln.  The photo above shows the part of the piece that was furthest from the firebox and on the opposite side of the piece from the flow of ash, as you can see it is quite bare, and part of it did not even really get that blushed.  While below we have the part that took the brunt of the ash flow.



While I really don't like this piece all that much, I must say the glaze effects are fascinating, I really have to throw up my hands and say I have no clue why so much purple came from an oribe, or even why in the middle of all that purple I got some intense forest green areas.   This piece though feels oddly alive in a way I am not sure I can quite yet explain, but the glaze feels almost like water/ and vegetation surviving in an otherwise barren desert.

The Copper Yunomi

Kiln placement is certainly an amazing thing.  This being one of my pieces from the latest Ceramics class that I took, and as you will see nearly all the pieces look completely different from one another.  This piece like all the others is unglazed on the outside.  Well actually I lie with this one, on this cup I dipped my finger in the glaze and made a few streaks on the outside of the cup, but you can barely notice them unless you are specifically looking for them.

This piece though came out looking pure copper in color nearly the whole way around.  None of the white/ green ash build up on the outside.  The above picture shows the area that accumulated the most ash, which only give the slightest hint of the white ash build up that quite a few of my other piece are nearly covered in.



This is the bare side of the piece, which you can see two of those finger swipes with glaze on the outside, the rest is basically clay that was blushed by the fire, to a degree that it blends wonderfully with the rest of the piece.




I gave this cup a try yesterday, it preforms well enough, but something just doesn't feel quite right about using it.  Proportions seem off in too many ways, lip is too thick, foot is too small, size and weight just in general seem off.   It is fun to look at especially in what I captured nicely in the photo below.  The interior of this cup is oddly mesmerizing.

A yunomi by yours truely

This is the first piece I made the was pulled from the anagama kiln from my class at the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts that I have used.  I used it two nights in a row, while it is a good size for sencha, it is also an interesting and good shape for Chinese teas as well, though often only filling it a third to half of the way with the way I brew.



I actually quite enjoy this piece, although it is weird to look back at the pictures of the pieces before they were fired.  As all the lips were even all the way around, I did not realize how much the thickness causes pieces to contract in the kiln, giving way to a rather uneven lip.



The interior color is fantastic for tea, although reduction did cause some ashy shadows to occur inside the piece which give the piece a nice bit of added character.  In the hand the piece feels nice, although I am large person and a little on the stronger side, so I do not mind the slight heft to this piece.   In fact I bought a new Kyusu that I will need to share on here in a bit, that actually scares me to handle because even though it is a decent size, it feels so light that it nearly feels like I am holding air when moving it.





I will say I am happy with all my anagama kiln pieces, and am actually shocked at how incredibly different they all are based on where they were placed in the kiln.   I forget exactly where this piece was, I believe in approximately the "middle" as it does not have  a huge amount of ash build up, but it is far from being mostly bare like one of my other pieces.   I should also mention that this only has glaze applied to the interior, everything on the left half of the piece in the picture above is built up wood ash.

Two Guinomi ( made by myself)

The amazing thing about networking is sometimes offers come your way that seem too good to pass up, these two pieces are related to such an offer.  Through a tea forum I have had access to conversations with several well respected teaware artisans, one of which gave me the offer that if I could get some pieces bisque fired to send them off to him to be glazed and fired in his wood kiln.  I choose these two guinomi.

This first piece started a bit of pinch work forming the indentation in the center, then I carved out the rest of the piece.  It was finished off by Shawn at Greenwood Studios in his wood kiln, and these photos are taken by him as I have been horribly remiss in snapping photos.

These last two photos are from a piece I carved completely by hand from a block of clay. This was placed in a "special" part of the kiln known for creating intense firing effects, which is seen by the huge amount of ash bullets built up on this piece.

Greenwood Studio's Wan

This orange wood-fired beauty comes from Shawn over at Greenwood Studio's.  I have two more pieces that were glazed and fired by Shawn but made by myself.   This one though as far as I know was made entirely by Shawn.

This picture shows off the wonderful effects in the glaze, but hides the nice form factor, there is actually several "wings" around where the vertical walls meed the sloping base into the food of the cup.  I do not know if they were intended to go all the way around and got dented in production or firing, or if it was completely intentional.


This piece is actually a very nice size, with incredibly thin, but sturdy walls.  I have used it quite a few times, though the first time was a bit of a shock, it once again showed me that when getting a brand new piece, a good soak is often beneficial, even if there seems to be no real sign of aromas from the firing.  That first cup of red tea I drank from this prior to a soak, had so many flavors and aromas from the kiln it was rediculous, ( I had to dump it after one sip).

Its odd I would not consider myself a fan of orange, but this is not my first piece whose primary color is orange, they are oddly growing on me, and this Greenwood Studios piece is a nice piece to have.

Wonky, Pinchwork, and quite surprising

I'm going to try and be as unbiased on this piece as possible, but I may wavery between hyper critical, and overly lovey dove-y with this piece.  This piece I actually made the form of on my very first day of ceramics class, but actually makes a decent chawan.  It is pinch-work with a coil foot. Sadly its quite wonky even for a pinchwork piece, due in part to the clay still being quite wet and weak when I attached the foot, so one side of the bowl is drooping.
 


The glazing of this piece was a huge lesson in how unpredictable glazing can be.  I call this Chawan my Painted teabowl, because the effect is it looks almost painted ( not in any particular design, but just painted, with earthy colors).  I had actually imagined a far more edgy piece, that had huge contrast, between white, black and dark green.  But as I am sure the experienced potters (if there are any) that read this blog, will subtly laugh at my intent while reading this, but for the most part I was treating glazing more like painting as in, whats on top is what will be seen.  I by no means considered that yes this when it is fired melts substantially then hardens again into basically a glass on the surface of the piece.

So the glazing of this piece, as I wanted that very bright white background, and looking at the test tiles, one coat did not look as white as I wished.  So I did two dips into the white glaze, then took a calligraphy brush, and did subtle brush strokes of Tenmoku on opposite sides, and Oribe on the other two sides.  Tenmoku of course being a black glaze, and Oribe being a dark vibrant green.  Well I can understand what the Tenmoku did, as I only did a single brush stroke, and brushing glaze onto a piece does not apply it incredibly thick, and tenmoku when applied thin tends to be a browner glaze.  The Oribe though still throws me for a loop, somehow the thin layer combining with the white glaze turned purple, but even more so developed a texture different from the rest of the piece.



This piece actually handled its first bowl of matcha surprisingly well.  While it will by no means become a regular teabowl that I use, in part because the drooping around the outside of the foot, caused a rim around the outside of the piece in which the liquid settles, and is actually somewhat hard to completely drain from the piece.

All in all I think it's a great first usable piece made by me.  While it is far from the look I was going for, it developed a rather rustic look, with a color palate similar to some pottery I have seen from the western United States, mainly in the Rocky Mountain, or Southwest region.

Julie Devers Yunomi

I have been remiss in posting lately, and I have had this little cup for over a month now, which I purchased before I learned that the artist is the teacher, and operator of the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts anagama kiln.  The outside of this piece shows remarkably well how much wood ash can accumulate on a piece during wood firing.  As the only glaze on this piece is a Shino on the interior to help make it food safe.  The entire "glaze" on the outside consists solely of deposits from the wood ash, which on one side creates a very thick and glass like surface, and on the other side a very thin layer, that feels almost pock marked, with little hills and valleys.



If there is one thing that absolutely fascinates me about pottery, but I have never seen any well documented guidelines regarding, would be the thermal properties of pottery pieces.  This piece, feeling of average thickness, and sort of glazed is an incredible finger burner when holding near boiling liquids.  But besides that the large smooth graceful curls working their way up the sides are great, and add a very funny comfortable texture to the piece.



Julie makes quite a variety of wonderful wood fired pieces, while I do not think she has an outlet to sell online, her website is http://www.newgrangepottery.com/ .  

Local Artists

Walking around my local city today I found an art festival of sorts which consisted of many potters wares, one of them caught my eye, both in terms of simple shape, and in price. The artist is Jud Tanja, and the cups were sold under the title wine glass, but the shape and size screamed Yunomi to me. Though when talking to the artist he left a remark which was quite comical.

I inquired if he had ever heard the term Yunomi, to which he replied he had not, so I told him it was Japanese term used for Teacups, to which he replied "Teacups can sell for thousands of dollars I just make simple drinking cups, based mostly upon how ugly they are." While I can certainly see this for some Japanese ceramic pieces, especially Hagi. I think it is one of those things where if you are not open to learning to like the pieces for their Wabi appeal, then often they can just apear to be exceptionally ugly cups.

This cup though, the more and more I look at it the more I like it. The glaze honestly reminds me of two different colored Denim's that have rust markings on them from working with scrap metal. While I have never been a huge fan of the dimples in the side, the glaze on this is slippery enough, and the dimple just seems to swallow my thumb to the point that the cup becomes a part of my hand, I do not mind it so much with this cup.

This just goes to show you, that occasionally a great piece can be found at the bottom of the basket.

Comparison of Shino Cups

This large cup is a Pink Shino by Chris Chaney a.k.a ChicagoPotter. It is certainly taking on a lot of wonderful character, the pink is subtle but I think I got one of the more subtle blends of the pink glaze he created for the Teachat Special Offer from which this cup came. The cup had a Sakura/ spring theme, but the sign of it on this cup is the "grass" you see showing through on the side of the cup.

The inside is a bit more pale also showing slight spots from the kiln. Though I am thinking I am starting to like Shino a bit, as it can stain rather like Hagi, and this one is showing the start of staining.

This cup is one of two I have from a Korean artist Hong Seong Il, which I find absolutely wonderful. They are tiny little cups probably only hold an ounce and a half possible two ounces, but they are wonderful, and the one I have been using quite often is the one that I find has such a great character. I do not know if it is considered a flaw, but the aspect of the piece is shown, there appear to be several holes/ pock marks in the glaze on one side of the inside of the cup. I personally like it as I by far prefer cups in which at some point I can see what the clay of the piece looks like when fired.

I mentioned this earlier, but I like how shino's also show crackling and staining, and perhaps I am a fan of thick and gloopy glazes, as is evident by quite a bit of my Hagi pieces. It may be a while before I write about more pieces as I am running out of items that I have yet to talk about. Although I have some hopefully wonderful works coming to me within the next several months.