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.

Deishi Hagi Chawan

 

 I really wanted to title this post "My First Hagi Chawan" or "My First High Quality Chawan" but both would be wrong, but somehow this chawan sticks in my mind that way, perhaps because I finally got a chawan in the style of one of the very first Hagi chawans I first lusted over.  It is a bowl in the style that my friend likes to call the "Frosted Gingerbread cookie" pottery.  

First and foremost I think I need to remark on how big this chawan is, and quite a few artisans are known for huge chawans, some of which I think border on impractical to use, but I started out using chawans on the smaller side of the spectrum.  To give an idea of the scale, I have two other Deishi pieces in a similar glaze, of various sizes. 

I have a third photo like the second one but taken more from the side.  But all that really shows is that even when they are nested like that, the rims of all the pieces are all level, if not the inner two lie below the chawan lid.  But to give an idea of sizes, the smallest piece, a guinomi, holds about 60ml or 2 oz, while the medium sized piece is a nice sized cup for tea holding 7-8 ounces easily.  As you can tell these fit inside quite easily with a  bit of room to share for the chawan.  I never measured the volume of the chawan, as it really doesn't matter, as when using it you never make use of the entire volume of the chawan.

This piece does have its flaws. for one I find it almost uncomfortable to drink out of, as the rim seems to thick and blocky, with almost squared off edges, as opposed to a smoother and gentler rounded edge. It is slightly heavy, but I almost find that comforting, but I am a rather large person myself, and I tend to go with larger ceramics pieces to match my own size.

Seong-Il Chawan

I now have my very own piece of Korean Hagi, and I am loving it.  This cream white piece that is already starting to stain wonderfully.  It is also a classic rice bowl shape, very similar to the Ido style teabowls that are so renown.

My biggest pet peeve on this bowl, which granted I have not fully tested to see if it is actually more my new chasen rather than the bowl itself.  In all honesty all Chawans I have used previously have had a rather flat bottom, and this bowl shaped bottom is so rounded, I have been having an incredibly hard time whisky my matcha. Although I have only tried using my new 80 prong ( instead of 100 prong) chasen.

So more on this piece, feels great in hand, uses Buncheong Clay.  Amazingly enough this is one of the few glazed pieces I have seen that almost actively seems to pull water underneath the clay, and in fact just having water sitting in the bowl the cracks will darken.

Xu De Jia Celadon Teabowl

I have long avoided celadon, not because I didn't like it but because I was worried I would like it too much. There is just something about the soft greenish/greyish blue color glaze looking like a giant marshmallow wrapped around the piece that looks so inviting. Not only that but celadon is notorious for having the cracks in the glaze stain.

But I was visiting teashops while in San Fransico, and at Red Blossom Tea I saw 3 styles of tea bowls, I sort of wanted one of each and when I called later to acquire one it was tough to decide upon just one. Let me just say I love the satin style celadon glaze, that looks so soft and inviting. It surely takes on stain quickly mine having been in my possession for less than a week already looks quite old and wizened on the inside.

For being a sizable celadon piece, it is phenomenal, as most celadons of this style are only done on smaller cups, but this one being nearly 4 inches exactly in diameter. It surely is a centerpiece, and I can not wait to attempt to make Matcha in this bowl, although at exactly 4 inches in diameter, it might be a bit tough to adequately whisk inside the bowl.

Ikkuo Chawan

While my teaware collection is of not modest size, I do at times feel there is one big gap in my collection. That is when it comes to my chawan, tea bowls are often one of the priciest pieces of teaware a Ceramics Collector, and drinker of Japanese Greens might ever acquire. That I feel is largely due to the Japanese tea ceremony focusing on preparing matcha, and often viewed as a way to "show off" excluding the possibility of showing off in terms of the setting, the main focus of the ceremony is the chawan. Show off is not the right word, but it is supposed to both complement the season and the aesthetic created in the room, and make good tea. But needless to say chawan that are visually stunning often are priced far above what would be expected if it were just to be labeled a bowl. The oddest part is in my understanding the early tea ceremony's used rather modest teaware, and in the place of the Chawan was actually a rice bowl shaped similarly to some of today's chawan.

From Matcha

So I present to you my "most stunning chawan" which in all honesty is not all that stunning, slightly impractical to use, and its focal feature is actually one that is growing on my nerves, in general pieces like this get on my nerves. I call it the "forced wabi sabi" mark, which when you look at many pieces of teaware and pottery of various styles, you occasionally see something like this, where the artist had intentionality dented the piece. When this is done it is usually in one place, so it is not forming pattern or shape, and the only feasible explanation for it could be to help someone grip the piece, but with my large hands that is never really needed, so I view it as an attempt for the artist to force an imperfection into the piece, hence "forced wabi sabi."

Another one of its annoying features, is whisking in it can be incredibly hard I do not know if it is the extra tall sides, or more likely I feel the diameter of the piece is just slightly too small. That and its dimensions look slightly off when viewing it, as it is slightly taller than it is wide, which looks unnatural to me when thinking of Chawan.

Learning, in many ways. A Jason Fasi (BearsBearsBears) piece

From Other Ceramics

I know the artist of this piece through Teachat an online forum, in essence I know him as a Puerh drinker first, and ceramic artist second. Especially since Ceramic arts is something that is not his primary job.

That being said this piece described a little bit as a California Hagi, though I forget its actual glaze name. It is the most esoteric piece I have in my collection. Esoteric in the sense that it is "glazed" but glaze covers very little of this piece, and in essence the glazing especially on the outside seems to be applied with the same design as that of random brush strokes for accent on other Ceramics pieces I have seen online.

Though I learned from this piece, as while it is nice to look at, and nice to hold, the inside is quite rough, and it feels far to rough against the lips for me to like to drink from it often. It is odd, I have no problem with lumpy, such as Hagi is quite often lumpy against the lips, but the fact that my lips are basically being pressed against unglazed rough sandy clay, it bothers me slightly, not to mention how hard it is to clean after having matcha in it.

But I will say the form of this piece is quite refined, and rather perfect.