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Thought I'd start a thread on yunomi.

 

I've been practicing cylinders for a while now. (.... Make 1000 before...). I sometimes think they are decent. Sometimes I realize I know nothing.. ( while I'd like to make a reasonable chawan, I'm currently concentrating on cylinders / yunomi

 

So please discuss, post pictures and comments about yunomi here. Your work or others, anything yunomi related.

 

I not in ceramic school. (But am seriously considering it...I don't have a teacher, with the exceptions of those on the net....no one at the community center understands "tea", and I need more input.....

 

I got this from John Baymore, (he was referring to chado, tea ceremony, chawan) "...... Study the tea cermony..... Drink and learn about tea....... This advice has taken me far.

 

Is it ok to use chawan vocabulary when talking about yunomi.... Kodai= foot, Kochi= Hip, ???

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This is a new idea I'm working on after seeing similar posted online.. This has slanted koshi. Or hip. Galloway/cushing porcelain cone 6.

 

I expected this form to be a bit bottom heavy but even it wet state it's feeling somewhat balanced, surprisingly.

 

And the outside "koshi" dose not match inner contour. Throwing that shape inside seemed odd, and awkward. Given this, surprisingly the form seems to work, from a design perspective. But as we all know things will change as the process continues.

post-25544-0-76366900-1416963256_thumb.jpg

post-25544-0-76366900-1416963256_thumb.jpg

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Good idea. I love the yunomi shape. I don't use them for tea all that much, but I just like to use them for anything. You will get a lot of flak from some people if you are not from Japan or don't have their specified "credentials" to be calling your work yunomi, but I think that is hogwash. Don't let others get to you, and make what you enjoy.

 

John's advice is great. The same goes for mugs...or anything really. Drink a lot of hot drinks out of a lot of mugs, and you will quickly find things you like and don't like about the pieces you are using. Obviously everything is preferential to your likes and dislikes, but that's part of what makes your art interesting to others. 

 

I prefer tall feet on my cups, because I have this idea in my head of a child in class that desperately wants to be called on by the teacher, and this child is standing on the chair with their hand as high as it can go to get the teacher's attention. The cup is begging to be used. And I started really liking a drainage hole so that when it is washed in a dishwasher it doesn't collect a pond of dirty food water. 

 

here are a few of mine:

 

temmoku Cup 2 (1)

temmoku Cup 1

IMG 2080

IMG 2843

IMG 2841

shino Cup 3

veiled cup

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Lee he puts drainage hole in foot or kodai so water doesn't pool when placed in dishwasher..

The drainage hole is in foot only and does not affect continuity of body, maybe he will show a foot close up.

 

There are wari kodai . While not a drainage "hole" like Phil's cups. it would serve purpose and possibly in a more traditional sense.

http://www.japanese-pots.com/HagiDeishi11.htm

 

Mark are you using chasen/ wisk and matcha in yunomi?

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@grype and @benzine: That's very kind, thank you.

 

@leeu: 

shinocupexample

Here is an example of another cup. The green shows the inside of the cup. Notice the inside doesn't go all the way down to the foot. The foot is trimmed out. The blue shows where the drain hole is. When a cup is upside down in a dishwasher, instead of gathering water inside the foot ring, the water drains out via the drain hole. Also, this cup has it's drain hole clogged with glaze. Always learning :)

 

Thanks Biglou13 for explaining. The link you shared illustrates the point too in a different way.

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  • 2 months later...

http://community.ceramicartsdaily.org/gallery/image/4571-yunomi/

 

the bottom of this one.......

 

 i was at a seminar recently.... and her pieces were incredibly thin and light .   im going to re think my some what beefy approach.   lighter thinner

 

and of course drinking tea often...   loose leaf

 

please post more pictures of yunomi

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Guest JBaymore

 i was at a seminar recently.... and her pieces were incredibly thin and light .   im going to re think my some what beefy approach.   lighter thinner

 

Bingo.

 

best,

 

..................john

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Yeah, there are some amazing pots in that enormous compilation.  I'm up to the "S" listings.  I'm about to try to make some yunomis myself.  We have a son in the Culinary Institute in Hyde Park, NY.  He's a tea fiend, goes into the city often to visit various tea shops, was in the tea club at the CIA (that sounds weird.)  He graduates this spring, so I need to come up with a graduation present.

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Oh, he wants to be famous.  This is the other CIA, the more competent one, the Culinary Institute of America.

 

I know you were kidding, but it's surprising how often I have to explain that, unless I'm talking to a chef.  Some folks get real quiet when I tell them Number One son is at the CIA.  I can't tell whether it's fear or unexpressed sympathy.

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  • 5 months later...

So I have a question for all you yunomi people out there. I have been making these for a few weeks now as test cups for glazes. Basically it allows me to practice trimming, wax resist of the foot and glazing all in one beautiful little pot.

 

However I have noticed that when I look at traditional Japanese yunomis the feet are never burnished at all, in fact they are all very rough looking. Is that part of the aesthetic? Cause I don't understand it from a functional point, but there is a lot I don't understand about Japanese ceramics. I don't mind the rough shinos and crawling glazes etc, but I don't understand why leave the foot so rough. 

 

For example: this yunomi by Lisa Hammond:

 

lisa-hammond_1271-5.jpg

 

Absolutely beautiful, but that foot would scratch any table on the planet instantly. 

 

Is it just a side effect of the wood firing that you can't get a smooth foot surface or what?

 

Thoughts?

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Guest JBaymore

Grype,

 

Look at the foot on that Lisa Hammond.  It has been ground..... you can see the grinding... from the color change in some areas.

 

So looking at the "traditional" heritage ......... there are a LOT of factors that come into play.

 

1.)  If you were Japanese in days not all that long ago, and you were served a brewed tea of some sort (like sencha, genmaicha, mugicha, etc.) in a yunomi form, you would be sitting seiza (siting with your butt resting on your feet.....sort of kneeling) on a floor made of tatami mats.  The cup would be placed on soft tatami mats.  The foot of even the roughest pieces would not be an issue in that situation.

 

2.) If you were (and are) a Guest being served tea in a yunomi, it is going to be placed on a small (usually) unfinished wooden saucer called a "chataku".  This act honors both the Guest and the pot, and protects anything under the chataku from possible damage. 

 

3.)  In general, Japanese people tend to pay far more attention of the activities they are involved in, and so are more aware and careful of how what they do can and does affect others.  So using a rough bottom cup in such a way as to damage furniture would be kind of unthinkable to them.  The sixties phrase "Be here, now" comes to mind...... but the Japanese don't usually need reminding of that important idea with a slogan.

 

4.)  The Japanese in general have a distinct love of nature and the natural world.  The materiality factor in clays that have not been overly refined is something that it often found desirable.  Any risk of scratching is far outweighed by the beauty of the clay.  In fact the texture of the foot against the left hand as it is cradled there is an aesthetic PLUS... not a negative.

 

It is complex.  I could write a book.

 

Changes in lifestyle in Japan have had their impacts.  I have been told by potters that there was a law passed not all that long ago that specifically made a potter liable for any damages that a pot foot caused to furniture.  I've not see the law....... but I believe that it is accurate information. 

 

But what they might consider "smooth" is a bit rougher than likely what U.S. potters might think.

 

best,

 

.....................john

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The rough foot thing seems moot to me: if you are concerned for the surface of your furniture, you should be using coasters, placemats or trays regardless of how smooth or rough the pottery is to protect the surfaces from heat, moisture and staining. Even though a lot of my parents furniture was litterally found in allies (or otherwise rough antiques), there was always a couple of coasters where ever someone might place a cup...and woe be the soul who didn't use them!

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