Last Saturday, I went to a workshop from Masakazu Kusakabe-san at the Sacred Heart International School in Tokyo, where Steve Tootell is the head of Creative and Performing Arts. Steve has his own wonderful ceramic studio in the school and organizes all kinds of pottery workshops. The Tuesday before, I went to the reception of Lee Love’s show at the Shun Gallery in Tokyo, where I met Steve and Kusakabe-san. What a chance. So, I had to go.
Masakazu Kusakabe and Marc Lancet wrote the book: "Japanese Wood-Fired Ceramics".
"Open"



Musakabe-san showed his throwing techniques and talked about how he perceived the throwing of a teabowl.
"Who am I?", he askes himself. "I am a tea bowl. The Tea Master sees me as an integral part of nature. The Tea Master finds me attractive because my lip is the threshold to the world. It has many powers. It can keep tea in and let tea out. My bodyline reflects my history and my inner melody and rythm. My foot is my most important part because the weight of my entire body rests upon it. The Tea Master knows all my treasures but my dream is to share my treasures with the world". Those are excerpts from the lecture and slide show he started the workshop with.






"Close"

In a teacup are two powers: open and close.











His thrown teabowl.
















Then he showed us some trimming techniques.









Marc Lancet signed my book last year at the NCECA conference at Portland. Now Masakasu Kusakabe signed the book with a brushpainting.

If you would like to know more about Kusakabe-san:
http://www3.ocn.ne.jp/~ufo/history.html
http://gna2000.tripod.com/miharudiary/kusakabe/Kusakabe1.htm