When I was chopping wood the other day by the workshop I suddenly felt a burning pain on my arm, like I’d gotten too close to a blowtorch. I jumped about a foot, turned around, but there was just a small maple tree on that side of my work area. After looking harder I found this guy under a leaf.

These little guys are absolutely gorgeous, but really nasty if you brush up against one. Feels like a bee sting and a nasty burn all at once. I don’t know what they turn into, but if someone told me ‘fire breathing dragons’, I’d believe them. Found about 6 of them on various branches of the tree, and removed them. No more nasty surprises.

I uploaded some video to my website today. It’s a teabowl throwing demo by Korean artist Myeong Jaehyeon, who makes some mighty fine bowls.

http://www.karatsupots.com/featured.html

I’ll be posting more video to the same page in the upcoming days, as I get editing done.

Here is something a little different that a customer ordered: Fude arai, or wells for washing brushes.
In this case, the customer wanted them divided into 3 sections, and wanted two places for placing brushes. As you can see, I’m into fish right now since my Korea trip, so I keep playing around, sticking them on the rims. I like to think they are happy fish. These particular fish are mutsugoro, or haze, or mudskippers I think, in English.

I had recently lamented to a friend that it was uncool toting ware around in plastic crates, for example when taking samples to show or or finished ware to deliver. A few days later he mentioned that he had gotten his hands on some antique Tansu cheap on an auction. Four in all, and in pretty good condition. He brought over two for me, the ones that would be easiest to hold ware in, and carry around. You don’t often see these types in such good condition, all of the latches and locks still work.

The first has several drawers, the top of which has a latch and lock. The bottom drawers do not, save the bottom left which does. The drawers which do not have latches are held closed during transit by means of the locking vertical bar, which when removed allows access to the drawers.

Then next is an apothecary’s cabinet, with a swinging door. It is deeper than wide, with long, deep drawers.

There are rings on the side because there used to be shoulder straps. The owner could tote the box around like a backpack, and take the products to the customers. It also has a set of rails around the top surface, creating a work or display surface in which you don’t need to worry about anything falling off. 

Here are some closeups of some of the hardware.

My friend got these on an auction for about $100 each. An amazing bargain.

Had a great 11 days in Korea participating in the Gangjin Celadon Festival, and visiting potters around the country. I’ll post pictures and comments from the trip as I get them organized. Took hundreds of pictures and hours of video that need to get edited and filed.

One of the most impressive things for me were the onggi demostrations. In the SW area of Korea, onggi is made using straps of clay rather than coils. It is quite an effective technique for making large pots quickly. Making the straps takes a bit of practice though.

I decided to make some study projects, starting with a tool basin, a big pot to keep the onggi tools in to keep them wet. I used a slab for the floor and added two slabs, which were paddled and stretched, then thrown without water. Decorated with a little ‘happy fish’. The whole affair is about 20″ across, and about 12″ high. As you can see, the form is just the start of a large jar.

I also threw some Ido style bowls and small cups using the methods I saw in Korea. I did it with the sticky clay used for the big onggi bowl, because my normal clay just doesn’t stretch enough to be thrown the way they did it. Here are some of the untrimmed pieces and a few finished small cups.

Today when I was digging there was a visitor in the kiln hole hoping to catch a frog. I made too much noise and he decided to beat it, but I managed to get a couple of pictures. I think he’s a Yamakakashi, which is one of the two venomous snakes we have around here. These guys are not too much trouble though, being fairly shy and not aggressive. People didn’t even realize they were venomous until quite recently because their venom teeth are toward the rear of their mouth, and rarely envenom people, even when they bite. There are exceptions though, about 15 years ago a 13 year old boy was killed by one of these snakes, I believe he was playing with it and it bit him on a small part of his body like the webbing between his thumb and forefinger, or something like that. I just leave them alone and try to keep my studio door closed well. They probably take care of the rodent population pretty well.

 In other news, the hand excavation portion of the hole is finally DONE. There will probably be some tweaking to do, but for now it is DONE. Here it is in all its glory: