247. KIM Hono, 1958­- , tsubo

247. KIM Hono 金憲鎬 김헌호, 1958­- , tsubo 地球のためいき  “Chikyū no tameiki” (jug, “The Earth Sighs”)

Kim was born in 1958 in Seto City in Aichi Prefecture. He graduated from the Prefectural Ceramics School in 1977 and became an apprentice at a local kiln before establishing himself as an independent artist in 1982. He held his first solo exhibition in Nagoya in 1985. He has been exhibited at the Nihon Tōgeiten National Ceramics Exhibition, National Traditional Crafts Exhibition, Asahi Tōgeiten Exhibition, and Chūnichi Kokusai Tōgeiten, and his works have been shown in some of Japan's top galleries.  Hohnoho Magazine, a leading Japanese magazine on ceramics, once profiled fifty of the country’s emerging ceramicists and asked them to define their work. Most of the respondents wrote a few paragraphs. Kim cryptically replied only: kaze wo kanjiru koto (feeling the wind). 

Light tan clay. The interior has a patch of aquamarine glaze; the exterior is unglazed with mottled shades of tan and brown. Height: 42 cm (16-1/4 in): width: 40 x 34 cm (16 x 13-1/2 in). 

This sits on a flattish, roughly circular base. The artist’s name is written on the base in cursive roman script, “Kim Hono.” The walls are roughly a centimeter (3/8 in) thick. The pot is globular, with longer dimensions from right to left. Part of the clay was torn away to form a rectangular opening in the front. At the top end of the opening an irregular flap of clay was tilted upwards. 

The clay body is rough and unfinished; The surface is cracked and pitted. The pot emphasizes its origins as clay, muddy, coarse. It does, however, ping musically when tapped. 

This was unglazed, except for a patch of much cracked, glassy aquamarine glaze on one wall of the interior. The mottled surface probably results from a lighter colored slip.

This came in a box with a brown wrapping cloth. On the front of the box Kim drew a picture of the pot in rough outline, with a lotus seedpod on a long stem extending from the interior of the piece up and across the top of the box. He inscribed the top and the left side of the box in three lines: 地球の / ためいき / 김헌호 chikyū no / tameiki /kim heonho (the earth / sighs / Kim Heonho).  He wrote his name in the Korean hangul script, with the symbols for Kim in the upper right-hand corner of the left side of the box and continuing in a horizontal line with his given name in the lower left-hand corner of the lid of the box. To judge from other examples of his work online, this is how he decorates his tomobako. Given both the Chinese characters and the hangul, his given name in Japanese is read “hon-o.” 

Purchased from the Kura Monzen Gallery in Kyoto, Japan, in April 2024 (invoice, customs and shipping documents)