With the turn of the equinox, which literally translates to “equal night,” meaning equal length of night and day hours, there is a sense of balance, and with it an inherent potential for a tilt. New potters are keen to pick up on the asymmetry of their beginning efforts, noting the wonk in their wares’ rims, shoulders, and bellies. They may hope to straighten their verticals, and shore up their horizon lines some day with practice, practice, practice. More experienced potters will side-glance those outcomes, and possibly think, “Oh, they’ll get there…I remember when my pots were asymmetrical, too…now everything is perpendicular and level due to practice, practice, practice.”Seasoned potters, however, may see the lilts and rises in forms as honesty in the materials, having worked hard to master symmetry AND move past it into more natural states of production with practice, practice, practice. Generalizations, of course, but there is truth to be found in the three levels of pottery making above.
Today’s sherd looks at a ceramist from northern Japan’s Hokkaido: Kazuhiko Kudo. In this dialog-free short film, you’ll see the potter harvesting his own wild clay from the field, processing it back at the studio, throwing on a kick-wheel, preparing homemade glazes from the ash of a birch, and wood-firing the yield for 3-4 days. There are culinary moments, too, where wares and good intersect with matter-of-factness beauty. And for those of you interested in production work, and have wondered how a potter makes their pieces all the same size/shape, there’s a brief glimpse at 1:15 minutes of a shelf full of “dragonflies” for measuring depth and height. One could improvise such a tool from two pencils or paintbrushes fastened together with your desired measurements marked in tape.
I hope that the balance and tilt towards lengthening daylight hours finds everyone partaking in the adjustments with grace and anticipation. Welcome the wonk, as the earth, too, defies symmetry…there are seasons to be discovered in your bowls and vessels if you lean in to hear it.