RAKU CHA RYU

Sasaki during our last firing at Shoraku About two weeks ago, I asked Sasaki-sensei to make two tea bowls. The first one had to be made for his personal use, the second for his family. None of them should be made to be sold. What did he understood of my words ? I have no idea. Nevertheless, he started to make four bowls… Later, he would explain that it was a way to make sure that at least two would survive…but each bowl he made was different. One of these tea bowls will be my « ceramic » conclusion to this internship. Master’s style Sasaki-sensei il a smiling and sweet man, convivial and fond of bright colors. He loves shiny green glazes, chalk white shoes and the Japanese tapas bars where saké is overflowing.   A black or a red raku tea bowl is not exactly the perfect expression of his character. One can feel it in Sasaki’s works. His creations alternate between classic dark/red and colorful essays. Sasaki's tea bowls Before our last fi...

Let's all rejoice for the very first surviving chawan is out of the kiln...many died in the way Pascal in two minds Pascal once wrote that there was two kind of minds : the intuitive and the geometrical. No mind is purely one or the other without being totally wrong but each has its preference. The geometrical mind knows how to formulate great principles and categories that are difficult to apply. « Thou shall never lie » says the geometrical mind, and it does so with an almost laughable   mathematic rigor. Such kind of mind is not wrong in the way it uses reason but its principles are not adapted to society. Meanwhile, the intuitive mind see the principles that fits each situation but are unable to formulate or even understand great principles that are not in their society.   Long story short : one think but does not see, one sees but does not think. To think or to see, you choose ! Yet, some situations require a certain mind and not the ...

The new born mountain On a dark glaze screen,  a moss of white rock has invaded the tea bowl.  The mountain is getting back what is rightfully hers. Extracting itself from the shadows, she is still fizzling.  Her shape is unclear and diluted like a cloud. She barely outcrop. Crimson gleams shimmer under the surface,  where the earth has yet to be opened. It is a great privilege to hold a mountain in her youth and to drink from her bosom  the first sprouts of tea. Black Oribe chawan by Sasaki Kyoshitsu II

A ceramic meditation A Chôjiro style tea bowl from Shôraku workshop. Nothing is more still that burnt clay.   But the light keeps dancing on ceramics with an astonishing refinement. And very often, the most imperfect and simple pieces are the most playful with their environnement. Sometimes, I think that this specific relationship with environnement is one of the roots of the wabi-sabi aesthetic : it creates what I call a welcoming nature . Arts and their nature Frame itself separates the art from our world Most of the western (but also eastern) arts exhibit a strong human presence. The art is somehow remarkable , a human intention separates it from anything that could be called ‘natural’. The vivid colors, the geometrical lines, any pattern or drawing that could be described as more or less realist — which, in fine , means that it creates its own reality — all of these are different ways to distinguish the « human » world made by art from the «...

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.  ...