122. Modernist, wood-fired, Shino-glazed pot

122. Modernist, wood-fired, Shino-glazed pot

This was part of the estate of the late Carole Armstrong, an American potter who studied in Japan in the early 1960s. According to her family, she studied under a living national treasure but they were unable to supply the teacher’s name to the proprietor of the shop that bought Armstrong’s pottery collection for resale. The absence of any identifying marks on the piece likely indicates that it was made by Armstrong herself or a fellow student or worker at her teacher’s studio.

Light brown clay. Shino glaze with some ash deposits; base of foot ring left unglazed. Weight: 672 g (1.5 lb). Rim: 10.2–11.4 cm (4.0–4-1/2 in); foot ring: 5.7–6.8 cm (2-1/4–2-3/8 in). Height: 11.2 cm (4-3/8 in).

This sits on the base of the foot ring. On the exterior the foot ring is about 1 cm (3/8 in) high; the interior has been hollowed out to about two-thirds of this depth. The foot ring has been cut away in three places. The walls rise in a shallow convex arc to the height of about 4 cm (1-1/2 in); from there they rise in generally a straight line, with many bulges and indentations, to the rim. At three places along the exterior walls, deep vertical indentations were made in the walls; each is roughly 4 cm (1-1/2 in) high by 1.8 cm (5/8 in) wide. My thumbs fit nicely in each, and the potter may have made them with the balls of the thumb. The rim has been creased outward at seven points. The surface of this is rough and unfinished.

The interior and exterior of this, with the exception of the base of the foot ring, has a Shino-glaze. This was wood-fired, and there is a good amount of speckling from the wood ash. In a couple of places, there are what appear to be cinders embedded in the exterior surface (the largest of these is visible in the third and the next to the last pictures as a large black spot). The thumb indentations are dark reddish-brown in color. As is apparent in the pictures, most of the surface exhibits the red “scorching” typical of this glaze, but there are significant white streaks and patches as well. The “pinholes” that are another characteristic of this glaze are much in evidence, especially along the lower portions of the exterior walls.

This is a surprisingly heavy object. The patterns in the glaze are spectacular. 

Purchased in July 2021 from Ver Sacrum Studio.