Rice bowl

Rice bowls. There are two sizes, small (5”diameter and 2” high ),and large, in Japan. We call the small one, “rice bowl / meshichawan” and serve just the rice, and refilled as wish. Bigger one is called “donburi”, and the rice often covered with the main dish, such as tempura, tonkatsu (pork cutlet), beef with some source, called tendon, katsudon, gyudon, respectively. Of course, for the bigger appetite, the donburi serves just white rice.

Japanese holds the rice bowl up in the air while eating, which is considered polite way to eat. When I was a kid, if I did not , I was yelled at “do not eat like a dog”. I know different culture has its own way of eating. Rice is the most important part of the Japanese culture. Rice served like the gold standard in Edo era (1603-1867). The local government was measured how much white rice in stocks, like we used to back up our currency with the gold.

kiln unloaded

Opened the kiln yesterday. Overall good firing.

The test piece for the chun glaze was not what I hoped for. Now I need to look the hyper glaze for my old recipe. I am so disorganized.... I changed the clay to the whites stoneware, less iron content...

I am getting the acceptance for the shows, May and June are set. It would be challenge physically, Buffalo, Pittsburgh and Buffalo. Maybe I can sneak in the Pirates baseball game in Pittsburgh.

5/29-31	100 American Craftsmen	Kenan Ceneter, Lockport, NY
6/5-7	Three Rivers Arts Festival	Pittsburgh, PA
6/13-14	Allentwon Outdoor Art Festival	Buffalo, NY	D95

Show schedule : http://www.hodakapottery.com/schedule/

Glazing idea

April is around the corner.  It was snowing outside.  We always have the tug of war between the winter and the spring.

Kiln is loaded, and ready to go tomorrow. No wind in forecast.

Sometime glazing idea comes from the imperfect firing result.  Here is one.  This bowl is supposed to be look like on the left, but the glaze just dropped during the firing (photo on right).  I liked it, and tried the duplicate design, purposely, by brushing the glaze.

Glaze test

Last two firing, I put a couple of test glaze. I was aiming the chun blue, and got this amber color. I like it actually.

I was glazing today, and noticed this cup on the glazing table. It looks like the chun glaze.  Bottom of the cup shows  2000 by me. I totally forget about I had this glaze. This will be great with my tenmoku glaze. I found the recipe in the hyperglaze program, and will mix it tomorrow for the next firing, which is on Tuesday.

Old Albums

The other day, I was looking for a Japanese pension card, and digging through boxes of albums. My daughter wanted to see the albums, so we browsed through them. We were looking at a picture of Varanasi , India, and she said this is 30 years ago today. After traveling around the US in Greyhound buses, I took my father to Nepal and India for a month for his sketching trip. We did not make any reservation in advance, and went where we wished. I hated it when I got home, but strangely I wanted to go back very strongly, six months later or so. I have never gone back though. People were very pure and seemed happy, except ones exposed to foreigners. Toward the end of the trip, I was negotiating for a long time over 1 cent. I thought that was a very important thing to do. The value of the money was different, I heard they earned $30 a month, and if you give a dollar for tip, they just became beggars.

Went Kathmandu, Pokara in Nepal, Varanasi , Taj Mahal (Agra), Jaipur in India. They had gorgeous and beautiful landmarks, but the market (Bazaar) and people fascinated me the most.

At the Varanasi , we went to see the River Ganges early in the morning. Probably we shouldn't have, due to the Sacredness of it. Anyway, by looking at the people's activities, bathing, cooking, praying, playing and cremating within a stone throwing distance. Life was just concentrated in one spot. The cremation, I still vividly remember today, how people looked happy around there. I thought that 's the way to go. I probably did not see sad part of ceremony.

In Nepal and India, literally mountains of bisques potteries were displayed on the street. We went to a pottery town, they were using a truck tire as a pottery wheel for making cups. They were serving the chai with these cups at the market, or even in the train, and they just smashed it once they finished drinking. No plastic or paper cups. Anyway, I saw a potter making large water storage jars, by coil building. He was making them very quickly and preciously. He was an unknown crafts person. He started to build a top rim of the jar, and built up a cylinder. He widened and rounded the shape by using a wood block. Once dried enough, it was flipped over to the bowl shape mold with sand and a slab of clay, and joined together.

Kiln Unloaded

After two and a half years of trial and error, I finally got a whole kiln reduced at my studio location. It was very calm day on Friday, and might be the reason why. I hope not. I changed the two things, at up to and during body reduction period, and the soaking period. I tried to fire the bricks first, not pottery, as I read one of Japanese pottery book long time ago. I candled the kiln longer, and used the blower at the stronger setting while closing the flap than usual to push the heat until the end of the body reduction with lower gas setting. Second, I put the kiln back into the heavier reduction on the soaking period for 30 minutes. This is not usual way. The way fired pieces look, the turquoise glaze shows the sign of the oxidation, but reduced on the glaze used for decoration, such as red/pink in reduction and pale in oxidation. It seems that the oxidized part of the glaze was reduced by this process. I fired once with the heavier reduction (less air from blower) all way through, which was very bad firing, lots of crawling if I remember correctly. I wish I've taken the detailed note on each attempt.

I do not know either or both processes helped this firing. I am pleased with what I got. If the next firing goes well, I will be out of the woods, for now.

Sure sign of spring

Day off.  Turned out very clam nice day.  Oh, well. What I found in the backyard today. Smile.