Euan Craig - A Potter in Japan

Exhibition at the Ceramic Art Gallery 4-28 August 2004

It is early spring. the plum blossoms, white and pink, are silhouetted against the azure sky. Daffodils are yellow tufts amid islands of green in the barren pastures left by winter. The air is still crisp in the mornings though with luck the last of the frosts are gone. I climb the hill in front of the house.

Looking back through the cypress trees, the house looks quiet and peaceful. Quite different from when we moved in. It had been empty for years, overgrown with bamboo and weeds, infested with a variety of vermin and surrounded by mountains of garbage left by previous tenants. The local children all referred to it as the 'haunted house'. I guess it had just been without love for too many years. Now, dozens of trips to the tip and four years worth of repairs, maintenance and gardening later, it finally feels like home.

This is my favourite time of day, a time for quiet reflection before the rest of the world interrupts. I know that the quiet will only last until the children wake up, and I move on through the woods. Under the cypress are rows of ash logs which I had laid out last year to grow shiitake mushrooms. I give them a cursory check as I pass, but I don't really expect anything until next month at the earliest. I break from the conifers into the ash grove itself, the trees still bare of leaves. The early morning sun flickers through the swaying stand of bamboo on the eastern slope of the hill. In June there will be bamboo shoots, but that is months away yet. On the southern slope of the hill, where the sun shines most, is our first attempt at a vegetable garden. I planted onions and garlic last autumn, and they seem to be doing well. Other seeds will have to wait until the ground is warmer. All in good time.

Down in the valley, past the chestnut and apricot trees, beside the rice paddy, I have a chicken coop behind the kiln shed, and as I go to open the door to collect the eggs I notice something in the leaf mulch under the persimmon trees. A small cluster of pale green leaves, about the size of a golf ball It is the flower of the Angelica plant which the Japanese call fuki no to. As I look around the ground, I notice others, maybe a dozen, and I carefully twist them from their stems so as not to damage the roots, and tuck them into a pouch that I make of my sweater I add some eggs, then move on down the path beside the ruins of the old shed.

The shed burnt down the day the lease became valid on the property. I do not know how it started, but the result is that what was going to be my studio is a pile of rubble. I have had to make do with the front hall of the house for the time being. After repairing the roof and floor, putting in some ware shelves and a throwing bench, I have made do. It is hardly luxurious, and the scale of my work is limited.

Behind the old shed I notice another spring delicacy - the leaf buds of the tarn plant, a thorny bush that grows wild here - are just shooting. I pick these, too, and add them to my hoard. I walk back to the house, past the mint and the saffron, and enter the kitchen. I lay my harvest out on the stone bench beside the wood stove. The angelica and tara will be tempura tonight, and the eggs could be a savoury baked custard. Tonight's menu starts to take shape. I fill a bowl with water and float the buds to keep them fresh and place it into the centre of the dining table as a flower arrangement. The eggs go in one of the several baskets hanging above the bench. I can hear the children stirring, it is time for breakfast.

Meal times are important in our home. We enjoy our meals together, gathered round the big wooden table in the kitchen. When everyone is seated there is a chorus of itadakimasu, the Japanese mealtime greeting, before we eat. My wife, Mika, is Japanese and we are aware of the need for our children to be comfortable with, and proud of, both cultures. Our menu varies across Oriental and Western food, and we try to introduce the children to as many new foods as we can. Over the past decade the variety of international foods available here has broadened, enriching an already diverse food culture. It is an opportunity to learn and experience, but it is also a chance to field-test my pots as well. The only way to know your pots is by using them. Cooking with them, serving food on them, eating and drinking from them and washing them up and putting them away.

Sometimes I make work to suit specific foods, eager to use them the moment that they come out of the kiln. Other times I prepare food to suit the pot, exploring the possibilities of the vessel. I have found the repeated using and reusing of a pot helps me understand the strengths and weaknesses in a form or glaze. I can then correct those faults the next time I make that form, bringing it back into the kitchen when it is fired, to go through the quality control process again. It is an evolutionary process, where only the strong pots survive, particularly if the family are using them. Which really is the point, I suppose. I am not making my pots for myself so much as for the people I love. Using them with other people, seeing how the pots interact with food, how others react to using them. Seeing the expressions of pleasure on the faces of my children as they see the meal served, smell the fragrances and take that first bite.

After breakfast, and after I take Sora, our daughter, and son, Canaan, to pre-school, I go out to the studio. Not that the studio is far, you open the kitchen door and there it is, squatting gloomily between the bedrooms and the bathroom. I am sure that when they built the house 80 years ago they never envisaged it being used like this. When I start making pots the shelves fill up in short order.

As soon as they are ready for drying I take the pots to the engawa (enclosed veranda) and slot the ware boards overhead across the space between the clerestory window sill and the beam above the shoji screens. They wait there until I am ready to glaze.

I fire my wood kiln once a month, so the pots I make today will be out for late Spring. I imagine what will be in season then: bamboo shoots and shiitake mushrooms, of course, Sansho wild pepper fronds, bright green and delicate, water cress, a variety of seafoods. These are the colours, flavours and fragrances that will bring my pots to life. Without-theirt the pots'are incomplete, for by its nature, functional art doesn't reach a point of completion until it is in use. Designing the pot begins with the idea of the total meal, like starting with a menu and working back. A pot is not finished when it comes out of the kiln or even when it goes on display in a gallery. It is only by a co-operation between maker and user that functional art achieves its potential. It is art in process, infinitely variable, affected by and affecting its environment intimately. In Japan this relationship is recognised as an important aesthetic principle. For the Japanese chef, a plate is not merely a blank canvas upon which he performs his culinary art but, rather, an environment for his art with intrinsic qualities of its own. In this sense Japanese food culture differs from Western culinary traditions Most functional pottery m the West is based on the 'form follows function' principle, but it was not until I came to Japan that I discovered what function can encompass Japanese food culture offers the potter an opportunity and a challenge.

Today I will be making rice bowls, simple yet vital to any Japanese meal I prepare four lumps of clay, 10 kg each The clay is a three to one blend of porcelain, durable and elegant, and stoneware, warm and natural I take care to wedge it thoroughly to remove any air pockets and to ensure a uniform texture Sitting down at the wheel I centre the first lump I squeeze up a piece of clay the size I think I need and hollow the centre to form a rough bowl Lifting and thinning the walls of the bowl, it grows in size until it is taller and narrower than what I imagine the finished bowl should be Wall thickness is important for a rice bowl, as it will be held in the hand to use, unlike most bowls in the West which would remain on the table It cannot be too thin or it will become too hot to touch and too fragile for everyday use. Too thick and it will be heavy and uncomfortable to hold. When I am satisfied with the thickness I take a curved throwing rib and belly the bowl out to its finished size. The curve must not be too deep as that would make it awkward to eat the rice with chopsticks, requiring the bowl to be tilted over too far. A graduated curve, like a parabola, is ideal. I measure the bowl with a tombo or dragonfly tool. Three pieces of bamboo are slotted together in a shape similar to a dragonfly. I hold the end of the tail and measure the diameter with the tips of the wings and the depth with the length of its legs. The size of a rice bowl dates back to the Edo period and is based on the average size of people's hands, rice bowls for men being slightly larger than those for women. If you make a ring with the thumbs and middle fingers of both hands, that should be the size of the rim, making it possible to hold the bowl with one hand. When the foot of the bowl rests in your fingers, your thumb should comfortably reach the rim. If the size is right I finish the rim with some chamois leather. At the end of a meal tea is often poured on the remaining rice and drunk directly from the bowl, so the lip needs to be smooth to drink from Leaving enough clay at the bottom of the bowl to turn a high foot that won't be too hot to hold, I cut the bowl from the hump. A piece of fine string, tied to a stick at one end, is passed around the back of the pot as it rotates, wrapping itself around the base of the pot. When it overlaps I pull it horizontally through the clay, cutting the bowl cleanly from the rest of the hump. I lift it gently from the wheel to the ware board beside me, then centre the remaining clay and start again. Throwing off the hump in this manner is the common method in Japan, and I find it ideal for making bowls.

The fewer tools used the better, as making the pots without too much fiddling allows the character of the clay to show. As I throw, the clay is already being affected by a host of forces; gravity, friction, torque, the list goes on Being an amorphous and plastic material the clay wants to align itself with those forces, to find a form that is harmonious with them. My job as a potter is to remain still amid those forces and help the clay to find that form. The less I try to force the clay, the more I allow nature and physics to do their work, the fresher and more energetic the pots become As I throw, I gradually find a rhythm, the movements used to make each bowl becoming less conscious Before long my mind starts to drift off to thoughts of other things when to plant the potatoes, how to lay out the new studio, what to have for lunch, why there are 360 degrees in a circle I go to place the next pot on the board but it is already full Ten bowls per board, 25 bowls per lump, 10 boards, 100 rice bowls When they are trimmed and dry I will glaze them black on the inside I envisage the contrast between the tenmoku glaze and the white rice, with the natural flashing and ash from the woodfiring on the outside of the bowls It is nearly midday, so I stop for lunch.

I have a small bookshelf in the kitchen dedicated to food Japanese, Italian, Indian, Chinese, even French Mouth-watering recipes and photographs of luscious cuisine grace the pages of all these books I love browsing through them, exploring new ideas But there is a difference between the Japanese books and all the others All the food shown in the others is served on white china or glass, whereas the Japanese photos display the food primarily on handmade pots There is no reason why other cuisines shouldn't pay as much attention to handmade ceramics, but there nevertheless seems to be a lack of interest To the credit of many Japanese chefs here who specialise in foreign cuisine, one often finds international foods being served on handmade ware in the Japanese style. One French restaurant in Tokyo uses exclusively Bizen ware, and recipe books here abound with excellent examples of this trend. Today, I choose Italian. I make some pasta, a salad and indulge myself with a goblet of Australian merlot I approach serving food in the same way as a Japanese meal, taking care to consider the interaction of the individual foods with the pots on which they are served, and the play between the separate dishes. Consideration must also be given to the surface of the pot and how that interacts with the cutlery to be used. Knife, fork and spoon require a smooth surface, whereas chopsticks do not. Mika has been busy with Rohan, our youngest son, for most of the morning. We sit down together and share our food and our thoughts. Animated conversation, Rohan joins in. The meal is over before you know it. Cappuccino to finish. Rohan is asleep in his chair. Mika lays him down on our bed and then works at the computer to deal with our mailing list. I go back to the studio.

I spend the afternoon making the smaller size rice bowl, and by the time I have a 100 finished it is time to pick up the children. They are fuE of stories about their adventures and the house is like a whirlwind as I try to cook dinner. The children insist on helping and I try to find them jobs they can do, We sit down to a Japanese meal this evening. Purists would insist on sake for a meal like this, but we are happy with chardonnay, or some of my home brewed ale.

It is late now as I sit at the computer. I review the day, the thousands of little things that are too trivial to write but too beautiful to put into words: the sounds, the smells, the conversations. It has been a good day. Not all days are like this, but the ones that aren't make the ones that are so much better. I sip my coffee, the handle that rises from the rim of the mug fitting comfortably in my hand, the lip warm and smooth against mine, the fragrance rich, the flavour deep. Axid I am happy on this cool spring evening, in the warmth of the wood stove, with my family sleeping safely in the next room, with this coffee mug to keep me company. It will be here in the summer too, and the autumn, and the winter. It is part of the rhythm of my Hfe, and a part of me lives inside it and every pot that I make. They are like leaves on the tree. I make pots so that I may grow, and they share in my essential self. Like leaves they are also separate, and will go on to nourish others, to make a rich soil for other trees to grow. Each leaf is beautiful in and of itself but having a thousand leaves does not make a tree more beautiful, or more important, than any single leaf. My pots will outlive me, and it is my hope that when others use my work that they share in this feeling. Whether they know me or not. Whether it is today or a hundred years from today. And if all that I have said seems to be more about my life than my pots, then that is as it should be, because pots are not about pots. They are about life.

Euan Craig is an Australian potter living in Mashiko, Japan He will hold an exhibition of his work at the Ceramic Art Gallery, Paddttigton, Sydney, 4-28August, 2004.