Day Seven - Tea Ceremony Class

Aoi and I left a while ago to go to Moto's tea making class. When we got there we got to meet the Sensei and introduce ourselves. He's a very nice guy, Randall Channell. Originally Canadian, he's very famous in Japan for he is one of the few Gaijin (foreign) tea masters. So we got to sit (on our knees-painful) and Moto served us tea. Its funny because its very precise. Even the way you sit. Sensei made us sit up really straight (he told us we looked like cats). You get a small dessert when you sit down and then someone will prepare the tea.

After Moto made the tea, Sensei told me I should try. Its so much work. You have to walk into the room with your right foot, and hold certain things certain ways. Basically I hardly remember any of the steps due to the fact there were so many. But basicall it goes like this.

Get everything together on a tray. Put tray next to door holding it properly, bend down on knees. Get bronze bowl (used to put in dirty water in cleaning process). Walk into room with right foot, left foot, right foot, kneel down. From then on it involves a whole bunch of steps like making sure the tea powder bowl is at the 11pm position on the tray, fold the hankerchief in thos fashion, use it to pick up this, put it a 9pm position.

Im uploading the pictures which will hopefully give a better idea of what it was like. It was fun!

Day Seven - Pictures

The pictures now are the final products. Well craved products. So if you look at the pics of the bowls I made yesterday by hand out of clay, these pictures here are what they look like now. Remember all done by hand, no spinning wheel. :) Enjoy!

Day Seven

So remember those tea ceremony cups i started making? Well it took me all day but those are finished. The amount of concentration needed to make those is amazing. You'd think okay looks good, so I'm done now. Nope, that is not the case. Takao today showed me how to do this whole process. Basically you carve the pot out of the clay you have, inside and out. The pots in the beginning weighed around 1200 grams. Now that they're done they weigh 400 grams! Thats 800 grams of clay i had to take off by hand. The little details go off the charts, like at the foot of the pot there needs to be a little indentation around it, the lip of the cup needs to be turned inwards to keep the tea warm. It goes on and on. Every time I thought I was almost done, I realized something wrong, something off centered, not trimmed properly. Needless to say my concentration skills are gone for the rest of the day.

Now I have my four traditional japanese tea cups now. Sadly enough, they won't be done until June. Tomorrow I need to tell Moto if I want them to be akai-raku (Red Raku glazed) or the traditional Kuroi, black Raku.

The good thing about ceramics, is that the clay makes your hands nice and soft. The bad thing, it also leaves them very dry. Today was the first day I had an issue with my hands. The tools they use here are metal. Basically, they have 6 inch long, 1 inch wide metal strips (flattened) in a box. When they need a tool they do not already have the can make it themselves, adjust the size, width everything. Since they dont have handles the metal digs into your skin, well, my skin. With all the carving I had to do today my fingers are red and hurting. Takao was nice and noticed the redness and gave me a pair of gloves. Really helped a lot.

Im proud of myself. Today was really hard and Im happy I have something to show for it. Tonight Moto is taking my stepmom and I to this Canadian tea master Soei Sensei aka Randall Channell. Hopefully I'll be able to learn something interesting. Turns out there are so many specific way to hold the cup, make the tea and it all has to be done in a certain order. Definitely looking forward to checking it out.

Day Six - Even More Pictures

Day Six - Pictures

Day Six

It was a busy Tuesday at the studio. Im pretty tired out from all the work today. I got there around nine thirty, and as soon as I was there Moto began to show me how to make the traditional tea ceremony cup. You start out with 1200 grams of clay, put it into a ball, flatten it to make a really think pizza. When done, you have to fold the edges up and make a cup shape (Pictures show the process). Ususally when making cups, you make a ball, poke your finger inside and and squeeze to make edges, so this was very different for me. It also take longer. Its about 30-45 min to just get the basic starting form of the tea cup. Having a bunch of time, I made five of these. Moto then put them on the sun deck so they could dry. The clay they use is very rough and tends to dry very easily. I also found out that they use this rough clay for its quite strong against temperature differences.

The pots Amy and I painted yesterday went into the kiln at about 780 degrees celsius. They only need about 25 minutes until they are done. This morning when I walked into the studio I noticed all the painting we had done was covered in white! Turns out its a clear glaze but I got quite scared that it was all ruined. The cool thing about today, was pulling the items out of the kiln. I had to grab my pots out and just standing over it burned my arms. SInce theyre so hot and then theyre then exposed to such a different temperature the pots crack. Well, not the pots but the glaze. Its a really cool sound. Im going to try to upload a video.

Ive constantly been wondering why its been so hard for me to use the tools here. I probably should have realized it before, but all the tools are made for left handed usage. No one there is left handed, but the wheels spin for left handed people so I guess they just use them that way.

I don't know if Ive mentioned him before, but theres another guy that works at the studio. He never really acknowledged me so I kind of figured he just didnt like having someone around. Turns out hes actually not part of the family, and sells his own products elsewhere. Basically he just works with the family and makes his own stuff. Today was nice though, because he was the one who helped me with the kiln and showed me some stuff. I dont know why, but it was nice to finally get some kind of approval from him.

After lunch I had to go get the pots from the sun roof. I spent the entire afternoon shaving the pots. The carving, since its all by hand takes so long. Basically try getting symmetrical pot using using a knife. Its really difficult, though I've been getting better. I didnt finish trimming. I still have to do the finishing touches on all four, yes four, I dropped one. Haha, of course I would.

Also, I brought the pots we made yesterday home, the sad thing is that the pots Im making now, and the cup and vase-y thing (made on the wheel) will not be done before I leave. Because of the kiln schedule they wont be done until June. So Moto and Takao will finish them and then my Dad will go pick them up.

Sorry for writing so much! One more thing, Moto invited us to a tea lesson, so tomorrow Aoi and I will be going to see this Canadian tea master and all the rituals that follow. Not only do I get to make my tea ceremony cups, but I also get to know how to use them!!

Day Five with Amy - More Pictures