Open Studio Weekend

The weekend Open Studio is over and it is time to get back to the wheel. We had a nice flow of people throughout the weekend although Celia's First Communion took priority on Saturday. Here's a couple of shots of the new display areas:

Next up is Meet The Potters, in Brattleboro - this Saturday I will head up there with a carload of the work and see how Vermont reacts to the stuff...

Japan Trip

We are back from our amazing trip to Japan. It was an incredible trip, full of tasty food, friendly people, beautifully wrapped everythings, on-time public transportation, and something new and different around every corner.

I published a bit more images on my Facebook page - 15 or so. We took a ton of pictures - over 500! Of course, digital cameras are a great way to keep kids occupied on long train rides so not every image is Pulitzer worthy. I think the images there give a good taste of what we experienced.

Kusakabe-san was the main reason for the visit and he was very generous opening up his studio to our family. He will be coming back to the Boston area in July to fire GreenFire again and we look forward to seeing him again!

There was so much good take-away: I loved how ceramics could be found in department stores, seeing posters for ceramics postered all over the cities, trying new foods, discovering how mountainous the country is, marveling at the precision of the trains and subways, being blown-away by the generousity of the Japanese people. Of course, it was incredible to be exposed to the clay history of the work I so admire. Hopefully, it won't be my last trip to this wonderful country.

Unloading, Cleaning, Reloading

Today, we unloaded GreenFire. I will post our notes from the unloading on the GreenFire blog tomorrow. Suffice to say, we are pretty happy with our results, especially considering how easy it was to fire. We cleaned the kiln, rewashed the interior and the shelves, and reloaded. I will fire it by myself on either Monday or Tuesday. Nora will be in South Carolina.

This is the firing capacity of the kiln: about two tables worth...

Will post studio photos soon, hopefully before the end of the week...

Hideaki Miyamura at Pucker Gallery

Yesterday afternoon, after driving through some crazy rain and battling the downtown Bostonites for parking, I was able to make it over to Pucker Gallery for an artist talk by Hideaki Miyamura.

The gallery is beautifully laid out and pairs Miyamura's work with paintings by Jim Schantz - a powerful combo. Miyamura was an extremely humble man who spoke for about a half hour about his process, his work, his history.

Miyamura grew up in Japan, the son of architects. He eventually found his way into traditional ceramic apprenticeships, where he honed his skills at the wheel. He became increasingly interested in glazes, based in part on his love of Chinese temmoku pots, which helped define his shapes: pure, smooth, with generous curves and often, tiny necks and rims. He works in a custom porcelain, again to ensure an absolute perfect surface for his glazes.

I'm not a big glaze fan but recognize this is a major shortcoming of mine - I am so much more about texture and form and atmosphere. Miyamura's work really opened my eyes to the discipline and work needed to really push this part of the pots. He has made tens of thousands of pots and had thousands of failures to get to this point. He continues to fire tens of tests pieces in every kiln. I really admire his work ethic and the vessels are a testament to his investigations.

The images above come from Pucker's website and the work is on display until mid-April.