Show Off Your Pots and Cups VII

[Ms Kita B]

I like the vid thanks for posting. Have you posted pics of yours on the forum already? I would love to check them out.

[bearsbearsbears]

Interesting vid, but I'm just not feelin' the love.

Taking inspiration from Bizen ware and moving it to the extreme, crusty wood/salt/soda/raku firings are a nonce American pottery aesthetic. Strommen falls within this aesthetic with aplomb.

I like some of his more refined pieces, where he keeps tighter artistic reins on his runaway textures, particularly where he plays as much with form as with surface texture. But many of his pieces fall too far on the extreme side of the "crustiness" scale for my tastes; somehow the boring forms can make an interesting surface look unpracticed or gaudy.

That being said, I'd still love taking one of his classes and owning some of the pieces of his that have caught my eye. When I like his pieces, I really like them.

[TaiPing Hou Kui]

My Hagi set is finally complete again.....after the loss of a Yuzamashi a few months ago it was time to get a replacement! So here is my Hagi ware:


I have to say that I like the imperfections of much of the Japanese pottery.....I feel in the west we strive to much for perfection and want everything to be symetrical and perfect. If something is perfect there is no room for growth, change or interpretation......well, thats just my two cents......

-Nick

[tenuki]

Taking inspiration from Bizen ware and moving it to the extreme, crusty wood/salt/soda/raku firings are a nonce American pottery aesthetic. Strommen falls within this aesthetic with aplomb.

I like some of his more refined pieces, where he keeps tighter artistic reins on his runaway textures, particularly where he plays as much with form as with surface texture. But many of his pieces fall too far on the extreme side of the "crustiness" scale for my tastes; somehow the boring forms can make an interesting surface look unpracticed or gaudy.

Interesting. How would you say he relates to Mackenzie and Voulkos's ideas?[1] What about his deconstructed vessel sculptures? I'm not sure an american art movement with roots in the 50s and several generations of practitioners active today could be called a "nonce aestetic", whatever that is[2]. Please explain.


[1] if you have to google this please don't bother answering.

[2] seems to me the use of the word nonce here is stretched/wrong in any event, although there is wonderful irony in it's misuse I suppose. and look you made me repeat it as if it was proper usage. more irony. weeee. I hate having to use a dictionary just to validate my understanding of words I already know....

[tenuki]

My Hagi set is finally complete again...

I have to say that I like the imperfections of much of the Japanese pottery.....I feel in the west we strive to much for perfection and want everything to be symetrical and perfect. If something is perfect there is no room for growth, change or interpretation......well, thats just my two cents......

-Nick

Nice! I'm not a big fan of Hagi myself, but I certainly understand it on an intellectual lvl and occasionally catch glimpses of it's beauty for myself (like the picture above for example).

I agree with you about imperfections. My favorite kyusu has an uneven surface color, as it was only partially dipped in whatever during processing. At first I obsessed about it's asymetry, not in a bad way but just worrying over it, confused, but I've grown to really dig it and now it seems perfectly natural to me.

I tend to think it's a different thing than imperfection vs perfection. I think the western mind is obsessed with categorization so standard form is more attractive as it can fit into the classification easier. It seems Eastern minds are more sensitive to context, ie the relationship between things and between place rather than just the thing itself. Look at our different forms of writing for another example of this. Anyway, just my take on it.

I posted this on another thread, if you didn't read it there it's probably worth reading if you are interested in these sorts of speculative comparisons.

ps. I really shouldn't post on the internet after a bottle of wine.. ;D

[Ghumbs]

Here's our first Chinese gong fu cha set, which just arrived last week. I was using a not so good camera, so the close ups turned out pretty blurry, but here are a couple pictures of the set.

This is the tea set, tray, tools, kettle, and tea samples courtesy of Stephane at Tea Masters.

Thanks for looking!

[odarwin]

here is something i got from our old house today,
these cups are part of a set that has a pot that looks like one from the typical restaurant, i didnt see the pot anymore so i thought of getting these cups to use for my tea set. these are my mom's and i think these are as old as i am...
not really good quality ones but i think it does have a vintage feel to it.
there are still more cups, but im a bit hesitant to get them as they were my parents' wedding tea set.
picture quality not so good as its from a cell phone cam only



-darwin

[zacstill]

Thought I'd take some time today and shoot some pictures of most of my current family.
I've broken two teapots in the past month! The round teapot on the table has a crack down the side. The other pot is completely broken. I got the matcha set for christmas from O-cha.com. I found the table on craigslist for 50 bucks; it's my baby.


Matcha latte from the other day. It looked so good I had to take a picture.

The family:


China-shaped plastic tea tray. Bought this from BearsBearsBears on the teaswap forum. Thanks again Bears, I love it.


Apologies for the laundry hamper...


The red teapot is this one:
http://cgi.ebay.com/Hong-Ni-Clay-Shui-P ... dZViewItem



My first and favorite pot, bought from my first and favorite teahouse
http://www.roji-tealounge.com/green.html


Thanks for checking it out!

[Salsero]

Wonderful pix, Odarwin and Zacstill.

That is a lovely tea spot you have there, Zac, everything ready to go and so peaceful looking with the stone and the Jade plant. Thanks for sharing and providing so much detail.

[FireArmada]

Here is my first Tea Set

[Victoria]

Very nice, congrats!

[Victoria]

Here is one of the travel sets I bought from Hankook. I looks big here, but it is only
a little over 2oz.
Sweet!





I guess I can't enter this in the GAIWAN COMPETITION, huh Chip?

[Victoria]

Another travel set from Hankook Teas - This one even smaller at a little under 2oz.

[Victoria]

Here's a picture of the Hankook store:



I also bought second cup and saucer set to match one I own and also a few misc. items including some coasters, tools and of course some tea!

[Victoria]

Here are some of the cups I got from Wing Hop Fung: