Hi,

Just a quick note to say, I've got a lot on my plate these days, pottery-wise and otherwise, and I should be posting some new pictures soon. I've just been so busy....

A Platter

Here is a "large" platter, it's about 2 1/2 kilos of clay. It's my biggest attempt, and so far so good. If you look closely you can see the flower patters blurs as it reaches the top of the rim, I'm hoping to fill it in with white slip so that it looks like the flowers are emerging from the whiteness. I hope it goes well. I've never done it before.

More Teapots

Here are some more teapots that I just made recently . Some are still in the leather hard stage, which I figured I might as well take a photo of now, because I've started to loath all the glazes at my studio. It's discouraging, I don't like any of them, but I'm not going to complain. I am kind of lucky to be able to continue my love of working on the wheel while I live in Japan.

Teapots

Here are some teapots I've made kind of recently. That is, they've all come back from the glaze firing.

Random flowers and stuff in and around Mashiko

The second Noborigama at the workshop

More Pictures from the same workshop.

The first photo is of a big stack of sagers, the second photo is of some raw ware, and the third and fourth are the fire box openings, and lastly a chamber awaiting to be opened.

Mashiko Noborigama

This kiln was quite large, it could probably hold thousands of pieces. From the looks of things it had finished firing, and was waiting to be unloaded. You can see in the pictures many sagers, which I think is interesting. I'd love to have stuff in fired in a kiln like this, and I'd love to hang out and fire it too.

Shakuhachi Player in Mashiko

and some random pottery otaku...

Golden Week

I went to Mashiko Town, one of the most famous pottery towns in the world I think. It was great as usual. I saw a lot of interesting and inspiring stuff. However, it was different for me to see other potters selling their stuff after having done it my self. I think I've got a new perspective.

Just Some Books I'm reading (or rereading)

The Frank Herbert book, I found in an English bar in Omiya, it's pretty good, I'm about half way through, but I'm starting to wonder when it's going to pick up... I still think it's good, but it's kind of slow. It's very interesting, it's about a group of clones that have been sent to deep space to conduct an experiment to create an artificial consciousness, they've been lied to and they have also been pitted against each other. It's all a complex metaphor, but I'll leave it to the reader to decide what it is... Amazing considering it was written in 1965. This is before transistors so the space ship they're in is very retro-futuristic. Kind of makes me think of the Anime Yamato.

The other one is a "minor classic" from an author who is an important figure in theoretical Anthropology. It's also old, 1959. In some ways it's still ahead of it's time and in other ways it presents an America that is all but unknowable. In a word Fascinating.

New studio, new teapot

...been a little busy, I made some more stuff, I'll post more pictures in the future...

Hanami

Aka, cherry blossom viewing parties, from Omiya park in the evening, this is of course a little old, like from the beginning of the month, all the blossoms are now already gone, Haru o! Toiiku haru o!

Good stuff from the garden...

This is about from two weeks ago, it's looking even nicer now, I can already see small unopened buds on the raspberry and current berry plants.