Lee Love on sun 21 dec 03
----- Original Message -----
From: "Lee Love"
> A friend lent me some issues of CM. I think it was in the march
> 2003 issue, Dick Lehman writes about 3 generations of potters in Japan.
Sorry folks! I confused this with another article. Lehman's
article is in the current issue of CM.
> The oldest potter was a student of Kenkichi Tomimoto, one of the original
> Mingei potters. Tomimoto told his student that it was important to
study
> tradition, but you must also study nature. Dick thought this meant that
> you should make something new. Actually, Tomimoto was saying, as both
> Rawson and Katagiri did, that a way to know if your manifestation of the
> tradition is correct, is by looking back and measuring against the source.
> All creativity comes out of nature.
--
Lee In Mashiko, Japan
http://Mashiko.org
Web Log (click on recent date):
http://www.livejournal.com/users/togeika/calendar
Lee Love on sun 21 dec 03
----- Original Message -----
From: "Lee Love"
> Dick Lehman writes about 3 generations of potters in Japan.
> The oldest potter was a student of Kenkichi Tomimoto, one of the original
> Mingei potters. Tomimoto told his student that it was important to
study
> tradition, but you must also study nature. Dick thought this meant that
> you should make something new. Actually, Tomimoto was saying, as both
> Rawson and Katagiri did, that a way to know if your manifestation of the
> tradition is correct, is by looking back and measuring against the source.
> All creativity comes out of nature.
Just something I wanted to share from an elaboration on this topic in
private email:
The other example that came to mind after thinking about
Rawson's "existential back-step" and Dogen's "backward step", was Gary
Snyder's poem Axe Handles. Snyder and Wendell Berry are my favorite
living poets.
Almost four years ago, this poem came to mind when I was learning
to make my first throwing stick. Kay, Sensei's grandson, gave me a piece
of Mt. Sakura to make my tools from. Mitsuyan, the shop Foreman and head
thrower, lent me his throwing stick to use as a model. As he handed it to
me he said, "I've used this for 45 years. We use the same tool as Hamada
Sensei. But don't copy it exactly. It has 45 years of ware. Make it
bigger here , (pointing to a shorten curve at the bottom of the stick), so
it will be like Hamada's."
You can read all of Snyder's poem Axe Handles here:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/togeika/2003/12/21/
A short quote here:
It's in Lu Ji's Wen Fu, fourth century
A.D. "Essay on Literature"-in the
Preface: "In making the handle Of an axe
By cutting wood with an axe
The model is indeed near at hand.-
My teacher Shih-hsiang Chen
Translated that and taught it years ago
And I see: Pound was an axe,
Chen was an axe, I am an axe
And my son a handle, soon
To be shaping again, model
And tool, craft of culture,
How we go on.
-- From Axe Handes, By Gary Snyder
http://www.livejournal.com/users/togeika/2003/12/21/
Lee Love on sun 21 dec 03
----- Original Message -----
From: "Lee Love"
> Longer quote can be found here: (bottom of the page)
>
> http://www.livejournal.com/users/togeika/2003/12/20/
"By taking an existential back-step, so to speak, we are enabled to witness
in humanity's pots a virtually unlimited variety of concrete realizations
which uncover and authenticate his life and action in his world of
--Rawson, Ceramics
This is from a part of the quote I didn't include in my previous post. You
can still find the whole thing at the link above.
I just wanted to comment on this because this is remarkably
similar to the quote my late Zen teacher, Dainin Katagiri Roshi wrote on the
back of my second rakasu (a small Buddhist robe monks wear when working and
laymen sometimes make and recieve as part of lay ordination.)
This is the translation of the quote my of my teacher's caligraphy:
From the Fukanzazengi (Universal Recommendation for Mediation) full text
here: http://www.mnzenctr.com/fukanzazengi.html
.
"Therefore, put aside the intellectual practice of investigating words and
chasing phrases, and learn to take the backward step that turns the light
and shines it inward. Body and mind of themselves will drop away, and your
original face will manifest. If you want such a thing, get to work on such a
thing immediately. "
A friend lent me some issues of CM. I think it was in the march
2003 issue, Dick Lehman writes about 3 generations of potters in Japan.
The oldest potter was a student of Kenkichi Tomimoto, one of the original
Mingei potters. Tomimoto told his student that it was important to study
tradition, but you must also study nature. Dick thought this meant that
you should make something new. Actually, Tomimoto was saying, as both
Rawson and Katagiri did, that a way to know if your manifestation of the
tradition is correct, is by looking back and measuring against the source.
All creativity comes out of nature.
--
Lee In Mashiko, Japan
http://Mashiko.us some photos of my pots are now up.
Web Log (click on recent date):
http://www.livejournal.com/users/togeika/calendar
Lee Love on fri 26 dec 03
- Or, Phil retching up words...
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jan L. Peterson"
I took a photo of Itoi Sense's New Year's print. "The Monkey is Proud
Of its Cleverness."
I'll put up a link up to it soon.
> I hope you potters don't mind me being a part of your community, even if
all
> I do is paint your work.
One of my favorite artists from the original Mingei group is
Keisuki Serizawa. He was also one of the original National Living
Treasures. He worked in stencil dying of fabric. There is a collection
of his art journals at our local library. There are three things in his
sketch journal that I like the most: his drawings of toys, drawings of
Ema (wooden prayer/votive plaques) and his drawing of pots. You can an
example of a stencil of his of a folk toy here:
http://www.artoftheprint.com/artistpages/keisuke_serizawa_folktoys.htm
The Ema wood plaques remind me of Mexican votive paintings, which I
also find very interesting. Alexander Calder got me working in tin.
I'd like to do these two types of work in tin and wood.
I think the most gifted member of the original mingei group was
woodblock printer Shiko Munakata. (Put Shiko Munakata in Google image
search, and you'll come up with many of his images.) Our woodblock
teacher has done prints of images from the whole range of traditional
pottery life. When I graduated from my pottery apprenticeship, he gave me
a print of Hamada, Leach and Goda (Goda was an important Mashiko potter who
died recently.)
I wanted to learn woodblock printing because of Munakata, and
Serizawa's notebooks made me interested in doing images of pottery and other
folk objects.
Itoi Sensei taught us to draw our original for the wood block with
ink and a brush. It is difficult to make a woodblock have gesture if you
don't start with a drawing that has gestures. We draw on thin paper and
glue it to the wooden board reversed. You can rub away most of the paper
by wetting your fingers, but you leave the black image on the board.
Then the cutting has a much different feel than drawing.
To get back to the point, I think one of the best things a potter
can do to train his eye is to draw pots. Besides, as they say, an image
is worth a thousand words. Helps you break out of the "psycho-babble."
Giorgio Morandi is one of my favorite painters. There was a
program on him last year and some shots from his preserved studio. They
had the bottles there that he painted. I always thought he painted
pottery, but it turns out that his subject was actually painted glass
bottles! If you stick Morandi into Google images, you'll see many examples
of his work.
--
Lee in Mashiko
"The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful
servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has
forgotten the gift." -- Albert Einstein
http://Mashiko.org
Web Log (click on recent date):
http://www.livejournal.com/users/togeika/calendar
| |
|
