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Re: John Baymore ... Wood-fired Chadogu and Pottery

by Saladin » Feb 27th, '12, 17:11

John, I enjoyed your new Ceramics Monthly article. Once again, great tea bowl, looks completely original.

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Re: John Baymore ... Wood-fired Chadogu and Pottery

by JBaymore » Feb 28th, '12, 10:08

Chip wrote:Wow, John, that is a very impressive chawan! You obviously used some very advanced techniques.
Thank you Chip. I should probably say " いえぜんぜん " here. (No, Zenzen).

Not really "advanced" .... just S...L....O....W. That process forces you to really consider the form..... particularly the interior. And in a Chawan for actual Chanoyu (my heavy area of focus at the moment), the interior aspect is extremely important.

The carving process has historical precedent in Japan for Chawan. It is certainly difficult...... but not insurmountable. It is very contemplative.

For this type of piece (I make this type of "flower" Chawan a lot) with that flower pattern, the big issue is the three-dimensionality of the impressions of the flower. I have to give them some variation in the depth of the impressions I make in the formed round clay "blank" to give the piece a sense of depth and movement on the outer surface.

But this creates the problem of dealing with the deeper impressions on the interior carving work as I hollow out the bowl. As I get near to the final form of the interior, it is very easy to carve right through the side walls where the flower impressions are at their deepest.

But Chawan generally need to be realtively light..... so the walls need to be thinned out as much as possible. So it is a game of tradeoffs here. I have to balance the thin-ness of the walls..... with the need to leave enough clay so that there are not HOLES in the walls :wink: . It requires some treally delicate carving in the very last stafes of the hollowing out and final smoothing process.

These Chawan tend to be just a tad heavier than my other forms. Drives me nuts..... but I cannot seem to solve it. I think it might not BE solvable.

I screw up a number of them for every one that survives. That is just the way of the art. Hence the high cost of good chawan (mine and everyone else's who focuses on actual Chanoyu works)........ somehow you have to make up for all the work that goes into the ones that do not make it to actually reaching "Chawan-hood" after emerging from the fire.

I know of a potter in Japan that fires 125 Chawan a year. He keeps only 25 of those....... IF they are actually good coming out of the kiln. The rest are smashed.

Fired success rate for the really good Chawan is actually pretty low. Strandards are very high.

best,

....................john

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Re: John Baymore ... Wood-fired Chadogu and Pottery

by JBaymore » Feb 28th, '12, 10:11

Saladin wrote:John, I enjoyed your new Ceramics Monthly article. Once again, great tea bowl, looks completely original.
Thanks Saladin. They contacted me and commissioned me to do that a while back. I've had the pre-publication copies for a while now. But haven't recieved my subscription in the mail yet... so did not know that the March issue was out in the mail yet. Thanks for letting me know.

And thanks again for the kind words on the Chawan.

best,

.....................john

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Re: John Baymore ... Wood-fired Chadogu and Pottery

by shyrabbit » Feb 28th, '12, 13:58

John, Congrats on your piece in CM, I look forward to receiving my copy.

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Re: John Baymore ... Wood-fired Chadogu and Pottery

by chicagopotter » Feb 29th, '12, 20:55

JBaymore wrote:
Saladin wrote:John, I enjoyed your new Ceramics Monthly article. Once again, great tea bowl, looks completely original.
Thanks Saladin. They contacted me and commissioned me to do that a while back. I've had the pre-publication copies for a while now. But haven't recieved my subscription in the mail yet... so did not know that the March issue was out in the mail yet. Thanks for letting me know.

And thanks again for the kind words on the Chawan.

best,

.....................john
John,

Subscription copies are out, got mine a couple days ago...

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Re: John Baymore ... Wood-fired Chadogu and Pottery

by JBaymore » Mar 3rd, '12, 08:41

Thanks for leting me know, Chris. I should get my mailed copy any day then. Mine always seems to be quite late compared to others.

best,

.............john

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Re: John Baymore ... Wood-fired Chadogu and Pottery

by JBaymore » Mar 4th, '12, 15:57

Recent Work

Made in New Hampshire / Fired in Japan

These two vase forms were made here at my studio in New Hampshire. They were then fired in two different anagama kilns located at the Toride campus of the Tokyo University of the Arts (Geidai) when I was there this past September.
JohnBaymore-Kabin-MadeInNH-Fired2012-ISCAEE-Japan-400w.jpg
JohnBaymore-Kabin-MadeInNH-Fired2012-ISCAEE-Japan-400w.jpg (41.05 KiB) Viewed 1933 times
JohnBaymore-YellowShizenyuKabin-MadeInNH-Fired2012atISCAEE-Japan-400w.jpg
JohnBaymore-YellowShizenyuKabin-MadeInNH-Fired2012atISCAEE-Japan-400w.jpg (30.47 KiB) Viewed 1933 times

best,

.....................john

PS: Catching up on some things now that I'm getting over being ill.

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Re: John Baymore ... Wood-fired Chadogu and Pottery

by JBaymore » Mar 8th, '12, 21:03

Chawan Kodai Image Study
IMG_1624.JPG
IMG_1624.JPG (24.34 KiB) Viewed 1885 times
IMG_1616.JPG
IMG_1616.JPG (21.29 KiB) Viewed 1885 times
IMG_1619.JPG
IMG_1619.JPG (20.74 KiB) Viewed 1885 times

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Re: John Baymore ... Wood-fired Chadogu and Pottery

by JBaymore » Mar 8th, '12, 21:04

IMG_1627.JPG
IMG_1627.JPG (17.3 KiB) Viewed 1884 times
IMG_1631.JPG
IMG_1631.JPG (21.06 KiB) Viewed 1884 times

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Re: John Baymore ... Wood-fired Chadogu and Pottery

by Saladin » Mar 8th, '12, 22:51

T-42 clay? :D

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Re: John Baymore ... Wood-fired Chadogu and Pottery

by andrzej bero » Mar 9th, '12, 03:13

so nice kodai,
question: are there any principles you choose one or another style of kodai?
thanks

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Re: John Baymore ... Wood-fired Chadogu and Pottery

by JBaymore » Mar 10th, '12, 12:36

Saladin wrote:T-42 clay? :D
Saladin,

Yup....you called it..... the top image is Sheffield's #42 straight from the boxes. Did you recognize that from when you took the workshop with me? Or are you using that clay out there too?

It is the closest US commercial supplier claybody to many of the clays I use in Japan. Has a wonderful "tsuchiaji". One of the few commercial clays I use unaltered. LOVE the stuff.

(Another great US clay that resembles Japanese clays is "Grogzilla" from Clay Planet out there on the "left coast". I sometimes order some ...and the shipping cost here to the "right coast" is well more than the clay material itself. Well more. Then I modify it further with more rocks.)

The others images are not that one, of course. They are a number of different blends I use specifically for making Chawan. Common thread there is lots of NH granite content.

best,

.................john
Last edited by JBaymore on Mar 10th, '12, 12:53, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: John Baymore ... Wood-fired Chadogu and Pottery

by JBaymore » Mar 10th, '12, 12:53

andrzej bero wrote:so nice kodai,
question: are there any principles you choose one or another style of kodai? thanks
andrzej,

Thank you for the kind comment.

Since I make a lot of Chawan actually intended for Chanoyu taemae, I tend to follow "the rules" a lot.... certainly more than an awful lot of western potters I have encountered. Many western potters make Chawan..... but not a lot have spent time in Japan looking and handling the "real things", working a bit with actual practitioners of Chado, or have undertaken studying the art itself very much.

At a recent group Chawan exhibition, I invited a tea master to visit and look at the works. She found few of the western bowls suitable for actual use in ceremony. She liked many of them as visual objects.... but would not be able to use them. Many were breaking "rules" or design features that needed to be seriously taken into account.

So the short answer here is that for a lot of the forms I make, depending on the general style (tradition) of the parcticular Chawan,.... I tend to often (but not always) use the kodai style that is considered "approprioate" by most Chajin for that particular type of wan. Certain types of Chawan are expected to have certain general kodai treatments.

All that being said.. ...... being Gaijin (Gaikokujin....foreigner .... literal "outside person")..... I do not have the constraints placed upon me that tend to be there for most Japanese potters making Chawan (and other items too). So I can eaily play with form, surface, and styles to my heart's content. I can put a Shino style kodai on a Setoguro type of bowl form and (sometimes) get aways with it :wink: . Or a raku style kodai on a Shino piece. And so on.

Either a Chajin will accept that "playfulness"... or not.

best,

......................john

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Re: John Baymore ... Wood-fired Chadogu and Pottery

by Saladin » Mar 10th, '12, 15:34

John,

I actually learned of that clay from Steven Murphey as he used it for his slip-covered pieces ( we worked together at The Artful Hand Gallery). I used it for a few years in Boston at Mass.Art. I also loved it! Such a beautiful, beautiful clay. If I remember correctly it contained Okmulgee clay?
I'm not sure how much Sheffield Clay would charge to send a box 3000 miles :lol: It would make my suitcase pretty heavy too when I head back for a visit. :shock:

I did learn of Sheffield Salmon clay from you, and how it seemed to make that Nuka look really pretty. Spodumene?

Best,

John

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Re: John Baymore ... Wood-fired Chadogu and Pottery

by JBaymore » Mar 11th, '12, 15:44

Saladin wrote:I did learn of Sheffield Salmon clay from you, and how it seemed to make that Nuka look really pretty. Spodumene?
Saladin,

That is actually Sheffield 16425 clay. And yes... it has spodumene in the formula. The lithium oxide being picked up out of the claybody by the nuka glaze modifies the surface nicely.

But if you put a Shino on it....... it shivers right off the pieces!

best,

..................john

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