#karatsupots

Unloaded the bisque load today to only one cracked piece! One medium sized bowl sacrificed to the kiln dogs. All of the large pieces and slabs made it. Turned right around and filled the kiln again, am

I worked on a large vessel over the course of two days and I'm posting step by step of the upper half to finish. The final size is 43 x 43cm. All larger work like this I do using a coil and paddle technique

This abalone shell sat under a bush next to the pool at my grandparents house for as long as I can remember. My grandfather used to take abalone off the California coast, they were so plentiful you could

Izumiyama porcelain from Arita started the porcelain industry in Japan 400 years ago. It is rarely used now, because it is hard to work with and lacks the whiteness of other porcelain deposits discovered

I started playing with soft slabs this week (no not that, you with the dirty mind) and made some paddled forms for sweets and food. They will go into the fall kiln once they are glazed. Here is a finished

Loading of the first chamber began this morning. The stack starts at the bottom from back to front. This part of the firing process is very important because it determines where the fire and heat will

These are six large platters I decorated and glazed today. They will be going into the wood kiln for the fall firing next month. The decoration is a combination of traditional Karatsu and contemporary

Here is my latest clay porn for you: freshly stamp milled, slaked, and filter pressed cakes of Izumiyama porcelain. 150kg. Not for the faint of heart, Izumiyama is hard to work with. It is non plastic

Testing send from iPhone.

Ido Tea Bowls In the Japanese tea ceremony, there is a saying about teabowls: Ichi: Ido Ni: Raku San: Karatsu It means that among the many types of teabowls, Ido are ranked first, Raku second, and Karatsu

This is a small gas kiln I use for testing glazes, and sometimes firing work when I just absolutely positively have to ship it the next day. This kiln is unique in that it is made from refractory fiber

Ok, you've finished digging, levigating, sieving, drying, and wedging your clay. Stop and congratulate yourself for making it this far... Now for the fun part, making stuff! Here is one of the freshly

Today I started making things out of the second type of native clay I collected a couple weeks back and which I posted pictures of me processing it into a workable clay body. **********to see the video,

Hello everyone, Very little in the way of commentary from me on this post, because the video says it all. This is my favorite class of tool: the cow's tongue rib, or 'gyubera', in Japanese. This is a

Let's sum up what has happened up until this point. You've found some clay, dug it up, humped it down the mountain, carted it home, smashed up all the lumps, slaked it in water, sieved all of the rocks,

Madara (mottled) Karatsu teabowl, late 1500's. When I decided to learn and make Karatsu ware, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I knew it was several hundred years old, and the first glazed

The next step in making your own clay, after you've made a bucket(s) full of clay slurry with no rocks, roots, or bugs is to find a way to dry it out enough to wedge and work with. But first, some gratuitous

This is the next step in making your own clay, and then making your own pots. Keep in mind that my method varies depending on the material involved. I'll post different methods and variations over the

This is part one of how my pots get made. I'll start with the finished piece because it seems like the first picture in a post gets to be the thumbnail image. This pot started out looking something like

Making something useful/beautiful/valuable from something valueless is one of the most attractive aspects of ceramics for me. Since I collect my own materials, I have the opportunity to turn something