Here are some quick pics of a few of the nicer pieces:

The one saggared tea bowl turned out well, even warped to be lined up properly with the front of the pot. The regular madara yu for the chosen garatsu turned out just right, but the higher temp madara yu for the madara cup and the ‘reverse’ chosen garatsu (3rd and 2nd from top) wasn’t high temp enough and I didn’t get the frosty surface that I wanted, although the madara cup was pretty close. It was in a cool spot in the kiln. Need to adjust the glaze and try again. For some reason this glaze pinholes like crazy on inside surfaces when it melts too much. Keeping it a frosty, matte white keeps this from happening and the surface feels like soft skin. Must have been a little light on straw ash or silica or both.

 Here are the pots after firing:

Definitely not enough glaze flow and interaction on the plates, but the chosen garatsu came out pretty well overall, if just a bit too heavy with the rice straw ash glaze.  There should be enough for the upcoming show at Amabuki Sake Brewery. Tilting the plate up worked pretty well, next time I’ll have to try a higher angle, but how far without making it slide into the door during firing I wonder?

Here are before pics from the latest firing:

There are regular chosen garatsu pots, some madara, and a few saggar pieces.

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.