Assignment #2

For my historic piece, I chose this tea bowl from metmuseum, made by Tanaka Chojiro from around 1575. I am majoring in Japanese, so this bowl caught my eye. I enjoy the rough texture this piece has. Although this piece was not wheel thrown, I might try to emulate the rough texture and look on some of the bowls I make for this assignment.  I also enjoy that I can see bits of the clay peeking through the black glaze.



For my contemporary piece, I chose this bowl from accessCeramics. Around the studio, I see a lot of people's work having "rings" around their bowls, and this bowl from Ginny Marsh seems to be very smooth. The glaze is also fantastic. I like the rough look of the bits of black in the middle of the piece, and also with the edges joining with the orange and blue colors as well. AccessCeramics states that this piece's glaze is layered, Also, I'm not sure if there's glitter on this bowl or not (it looks sparkly where the light hits it? I don't know). I don't think glitter would be allowed in the studio, so I think I'll stick to the standard slips and glazes we have available to us.

For my pieces, I want to try to incorporate either the glaze technique from Ginny Marsh, or get the rough feel from the Japanese bowl. I don't even know if a rough texture is possible with the wheel, as I've never done it before. As for the decorations on my bowls, I might try to add some animals representing the types of food that goes in my bowls. For example, maybe I would add a deer to a bowl that would contain only vegetarian meals. I might try to get fancy and add some mythological animals to my bowls (we'll see how that goes).