Gallery

Rain, rain, GO AWAY…. REALLY!

It has been raining cats and dogs since this morning, and we must have gotten about 8 inches in as many hours. Unreal. It is the first time the water has risen in my kiln to a level that would affect pots if they were loaded into the first chamber. In the past it has always stopped short of the front floor but today it was a couple of inches deep in the front floor area.

At least I had good weather yesterday and into early this morning for firing the gas kiln. Turned off the kiln at around 5 am (fired for 18 hours) and when I woke up at 6, it was pouring. Later in the day, I peeked into the kiln when it was still around 700C. Snapped a couple of pictures, with and w/o the flash. The first glance doesn’t look too good. Ame yu was a bit too thin, I think, but won’t know for sure until I open the kiln up completely and have a good look. One thing I am happy about is that the new clay blend I was testing seems to have stayed together nicely, no bad slumping (a little slumping, I like).

Tiny 5 artist show in Taku

The go-nin ten is a tiny 5 person show that is more of an afterthought to the annual lotus blossom viewing event that happens here in Taku. Strictly speaking, it is not much of a chance to sell pots, but it is nice to mingle with the locals and meet new people. Most people come through the area after seeing the blossoms, give the pots a sort of disinterested glance and pass right out again. The ones that do stay to look however, are a good chance at advertising my bigger show later this month. I keep a stack of mailer postcards for people to take.

There are  three other potters, and one jewelery maker exhibiting.

As we were settling in for the morning, getting ready for customers to come by, a HUGE box arrived by express carrier. This box was big, probably about 2x2x2 meters! Turned out to be the new town mascot costume. Since the town’s biggest attraction is the 300+ year old Confucian Temple, the Taku town mascot was voted to be Takuo, a big dude that looks like Confucius, a big Confucius who likes to run around and hug people a lot, and who has a fuzzy pink heart on his butt for people to rub.


 


 

 

Major Changes

You may or may not have noticed, but the Karatsupots blog that you are seeing now is not the one you usually see.

In my never ending struggle for money, fame, and absolute power (it’s why I became a potter after all…) I have migrated my blog from Blogger.com to my own Karatsupots server, and will continue to publish the blog via WordPress. I’ll have better options regarding archiving and organization, ease of update, better optimization for being seen by the search engines, etc…

Those of you who visit frequently, don’t worry, everything is secure and aside from a few cosmetic issues, fairly seamless so far.

I’ll be hammering out the remaining cosmetic issues over the next few weeks and months, and am hoping to add some options for improved usability and visibility.

Incidentally, it is not just the blog. The Karatsupots.com website and online store is also experiencing an overhaul and will be up soon, new and improved…

Boy am I sick of sitting in front of the computer though… need to get back out to the studio and make some pots!

Oh, almost forgot the eye candy. This is an Oku-Gorai chawan, and exhibits most of the characteristics treasured by tea bowl enthusiasts. Chirimenjiwa (crinkly trimmed texture), Kairagi (glaze crawling over the trimmed surface resembling plum tree bark), Yu-kire (uneven glaze spots), Yubi-Ato (finger marks in the glaze), Ishihaze (stones erupting from the clay surface).

Some new teapots

Here are a couple of the shiboridashi teapots from the second firing, cleaned up with their knobs attached. The knobs are solid silver, polished and fumed to give a muted color that matches with the clay nicely. These are pretty small pots, holding about 120ml of water, mainly used for very nice sencha or gyokurocha.  The first knob is a stylized version of a Ganoderma Lucidum fungi, or ‘Reishi’ in Japanese. The second is a realistic rendering of the same. I am personally very happy with how these pots came together. The test will be at the show next month and the big question is: will they sell?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Final Coat part II

Got two more tons of cob mix delivered yesterday morning and finished up the top coat on the kiln. Lots of mix left over for filling cracks later, and also for finishing up the pizza oven next week.

One thing I was really happy about was not coming across any dead frogs in the cob, like the last load.

As you can see, great care has been taken to keep the front crack free. I’ve been paddling  and burnishing it in a vain effort to keep it smooth.

You would think there is no real practical reason to keep the surface smooth, but the way it was explained to me, this is actually quite important, because during firing when the kiln leaves orbit and begins re-entry into the Ceramisphere, the temperatures and stresses exerted are phenomenal. Any crack or weak spot in the top coat could lead to catastrophic failure in the kiln structure. ; )

new blog for teabowl workshop

http://workshopintaku2012.blogspot.com/

Above is the address for the blog I just started for the upcoming workshop in taku 2012: The Simple Teabowl. It will be updated throughout the year, as the workshop date approaches. Dates, by the way, are 2012, May 12 – 18.

Basic info about the workshop (dates, fees, program, etc…)can be found first and foremost here:

http://karatsupots.com/workshop2012/2012home.html

There are still a few things to flesh out, but the basic bones of the workshop have been taken care of. We currently have 2 amazing potters, and one amazing tea instructor who have agreed to give lectures and demos.