RAKU CHA RYU

The seven rules of Tea :  “First you must make a delicious bowl of tea; lay the charcoal so the water boils;  arrange the flowers as they are in the field;  i n the summer suggest coolness,  in the winter, warmth;  do everything ahead of time; prepare for rain;  and give those with whom you find yourself every consideration.” — Sen no Rikyu  (who liked to improvise such sayings) In any tea ceremony, there are at least three steps : purification of the ustensiles, preparation of the actual tea and the cleaning of the ustensiles. To my knowledge, these are the incompressible steps that any tea practice include, even for a minimal tea event. Broadly speaking, what is a « tea ceremony » ? It is an event organized by a host in a place that is adequate or not for tea and to which the guests attend generally with some preparation. A great deal of codes govern over the behavior of the host and his way of serving tea (and,...

Flame turned into earth Ceramic lovers often have an almost « fleshy » consideration for some pieces they love and, above all, for tea bowls. That is the erotic part of the ceramic art that I would like to talk about today. A successful ceramic piece is never exactly « cold ». It always keep a certain lukewarmness and, when it contains the very precious matcha, the piece does not burn nor disappoint. Any tea bowl that reacts in such way can be called a chawan. After this first impression, its skin can be soft or rough, its curve refined or heavy. Here, tastes and colors can be discussed at length : but the tea bowl will always have a certain welcoming beauty. I say « welcoming » because the shape of a bowl is probably the shape of the container in itself : it cannot exactly aggress any beholder because it can only « receive », —welcome — something before giving it. And maybe because of precisely that, or maybe simply because any ...

If one had to define what is the tea ceremony, how s/he should proceed ? " Tea is nought but this: first you heat the water, then you make the tea. Then you drink it properly. That is all you need to know." — Sen no Rikyu  (also the author of hundreds of other maxims on Tea that render this one much more esoteric) Enter a world of simplicity... The Japanese name of the tea ceremony is Sado ( 茶道 ). Sado should be translated as the Way of Tea. And " Way " must be understood here in its Asian meaning as a path that shapes one’s life, the occasion to meditate at all time on how to behave. But the tea ceremony is also sometimes called chanoyu ( 茶の湯 ) which means " hot water of tea ". Their are many explanations to this name and I will just mention one of them : it is supposed to remind hosts and guests that tea is simply the act of serving tea.  One could already feel the paradox that runs through...

Newsletter #2 When you do pottery, a lot of people think that there is remorse, but there is not : what has been done cannot be changed. It gives a strange feeling of responsibility. Consequences of a movement This responsibility starts as soon as the clay is being made. To prepare it, one has to definitely mix different dirts and sands. Then comes the moment when one has to decide on the general shape of the piece that will later be carved. This  big lump of clay might look harmless, but it is already deciding a lot about what will come next. As soon as the hand lays for the first time on the clay, it is already taking a step toward a certain direction. And then, each move has influence on the whole piece. There is no surgical operation that can correct but do not deregulate. Maybe, that is why the potter’s moves seem so simple : s/he has to be fast, shape everything in a single swoop and without retrieving any part of the piece that m...

" At this time, the places where Cha-no-yu was most flourishing were Sakai in the East and Hakata in the West. The spirit of Sakai was esoteric and calm, that of Hakata dignified and magnificient. Rikyû and Sôkyû were typical of the East, Sôshitsu and Sôtan of the West. Of Hideyoshi it might be said that he was inclined to make the East his teacher and the West his friend. " — A.L. Sadler, The Japanese Tea Ceremony Based on what I could read, one can identify two " spiritual roots " to modern Tea.  I use the term « root » here but these two practices are certainly not the only practices that inspired modern Tea. I see them rather as « poles » of the practice of tea. These two poles are : the wordly pole (or court pole) and the meditative pole. Are the two cities mentioned by A.L. Sadler (who is only quoting a text here but the reference is lacking) matching these two poles ? I cannot say for sure. Tea Ceremony by Chikanobu Toyohara (1838-1912) ...

A mountain, a tea-bowl and thousands of pictures Few days ago, I was looking at one of Sasaki Kyoshitsu's  chawan  as I was making my own tea bowls in his workshop. Mt Fuji's shape was arising in bone white color on its shiny black side. It felt like it had appeared before me before a dark stary night. It gave quite a contrast with the gentle breeze of the early June and its almost shadowless sunshine. So I started to wonder : why is Mt Fuji so fascinating ? Mt Fuji is certainly a landscape in itself. No need to draw anything around it nor to detail which face of it you are painting. Its shape is enough to make it recognizable on prints and advertisements. During my first trip to Japan, I could not see Mt Fuji and, at that time, I did not understood why the Japanese fancied this mountain so much since it is not so high nor peculiar. I then thought that the Japanese loved their unique "big" mountain like some villages in France love their only church.  ...

Newsletter #1 Experience without words At Sasaki Kyoshitsu’s workshop, we barely talk. Our main communication channels are hands, looks and practice. Simple laughter also. The Japanese people call that ishin denshin ( 以心伝心 ) : « what the mind think, the heart conveys ». That is non-verbal communication, implicit exchange — i.e. the hypothesis that we mutually understand each other. But is there any need to talk ? After the first explanations, each of us is alone in front of his workbench and sitting cross-legged (for those who can stand such a position for a long time)…facing the mountain out of the workshop. And then, the work begins, it is repetitive. Most of the time, no unique piece is made. I do « unique » pieces because I am unable to give the same shape to the clay each time. It comes only with a lot of time and practice. There is no real industrial method here. And the potter’s experience might give him something far greater th...