Wabi-Sabi Pottery

 The Relationship Between Wabi-sabi and Pottery

A favorite piece that was soda fired

One never knows what will happen!

What is wabi-sabi? According to wikipedia~ wabi-sabi (侘び寂び) centers on the acceptance of transience and imperfection. It is often described as the appreciation of beauty that is "imperfect, impermanent, and incomplete"

Missed a spot right in the middle

I did know this before it was fired

 

Astrid Auxier has written a wonderful treatise about wabi -sabi in relation to pottery. She mentions ‘…understanding its essence through the concept of tranquility, imperfection, and the appreciation of the temporal nature of all things.

This was originally the side of a vessel

There is a lot to consider in the appreciation of wabi-sabi. After making pottery myself for several years, I have gotten an offbeat idea about wabi-sabi and pottery.
How and why did the idea of embracing imperfection come about? It apparently started in relation to Japanese tea ceremonies and tea cups. And why is this? Well, according to me, it was figured out by a marketing genius! Pottery is inherently risky in so many ways. It can crack, it can become misshapen during firing, glazes can run, colors can be sadly (or happily) surprising. If you make pottery that is not production pottery or formulaic, you must come to accept that things will not turn out as you may have wanted, i.e. you must be willing to release your expectations and accept what happens. If you are soda firing, raku firing or wood firing, control of the finished glaze is not really in your hands.

Flew off the wheel; needed re-shaping

If the pottery is just 'wrong', what must you do with it? I give a lot of pottery away to friends or the neighborhood because I can only accept so much in the way of oddness and what I feel is ugly. But a lot of time, thought and work is put into all of those pieces too.
The marketing mastermind behind wabi-sabi thought ‘How can I make this work for me?’ By pointing out the errors, appreciating them and getting others to enjoy impermanence and imperfection of course. It worked a treat! The monks went along with it, and monks are never wrong. If the monks say it is a good thing then society must agree with them. After all, they have the inside track to enlightenment! And who doesn’t want enlightenment?

Soda fired piece~ well that was unexpected!

Is wabi-sabi simply an invention to make pottery errors acceptable so less of it ends up on the shard pile? Perhaps!

 

Plant Based Vegan Cheese, My Way

 Lately I have been leaning more towards a vegan or plant-based lifestyle. I've done a lot of looking around at 'fake' cheese choices. I'm not happy with most of the stuff at the grocer's because it's just flavored oil and potato starch (though some is made using nuts); that is not really recommended for a plant based diet- just more fake food. I've tried out a lot of recipes~ some are OK, some are not so great, but none of them had a texture I was  happy with. So I took a bunch of recipes and rolled them all into this mess~ which will get semi-hard in the fridge. 

Disclaimer- I don't measure a lot of this stuff~ just guesstimate, so tweak as desired. I'll explain the ingredient choices a bit in the end notes.

 

 

 

• 1/3- 1/2 cup cashews/almonds or a combination of the two, soaked for 1/2-3 hrs; drained  
  
• 1/2 T miso
• 1T tahini
• 1T cornstarch (optional)
• 1 1/2 T coconut oil (optional)
• 2 capfuls of natural vinegar
• 2 T vegan yogurt (preferred) or plant milk of your choice
• 1-2 T nutritional yeast
• 1 t lemon juice
• 1/2 t tamari or natural soy sauce
• 2-5 drops smoke flavor
  

Put nuts and some of the liquid ingredients in blender or food processor first and get the nuts mostly ground up. Add everything else and blend or process until smooth. Add a bit of extra plant milk or water as needed to blend it up.

                                                                                Notes
You can easily remove almond skins once they're soaked if you don't want the brown bits. 

Miso, plant yogurt and vinegar will lend a more tart flavor over time as they contain active cultures.

Cornstarch and coconut oil are there to thicken it up as it site in the fridge. If these are not on your diet, you can omit them; it just won't thicken up as well.

I truly don't measure the yeast, lemon juice or tamari, add and taste to get it to your liking.

Smoke flavoring is obviously optional, but I find it lends a nice gouda-like flavor.

Tahini is there because I believe is helps the flavor along. And I love tahini!

Bumps and Bobbles and Whorls

It seems everyone has an opinion about raised bumps on beads. Do you like the feel of them, the fact that they add texture to your beads? Or do you prefer the smooth look and feel of the glass all by itself? Long ago, I was a 'no bumps please' bead maker. But now? Oh give me some texture!
For glass whorl making, bobbles have a purpose beyond looks. They add a little weight to the whorl, which often seems like a good thing. And if they are placed all around the outside, they can also affect the speed and length of the spin. Oh, it's physics, and I am not so good with physics. But it does change how things go around.

To quote Wikipedia:  'Whorl shapes vary greatly and can include ball-shaped, disk-shaped and cross shaped whorls. The shape and mass distribution of the whorl affects the momentum it gives to the spindle while it is spinning. For example a center weighted whorl will spin very fast and short, while a rim-weighted disk-shaped whorl will spin longer and slower.^[9]'

<sup>So, first I make a nice smooth whorl. Then maybe I add some swirls here and there, either evenly all around the bead, or maybe just randomly. Then I wonder if it might need just a little more weight, or if accent bumps would look nice. And then, well, does it need raised bumps around the center to make it spin a bit longer? And, if it happens to be a sea urchin whorl, then bumps and bobbles are a definite part of the design!

Oh, looking through that article, I see spindles are associated with a number of goddesses. Hmmm... going to have to let the brain wheels spin around that for a bit!</sup>

Torch Time Again!

 Good golly, I have not been blogging much! Just popping in now to say my torch is back up and running after being on hiatus for a couple of months. I've started out with some fancy silver-cored fish pendants and glass whorls for spinning yarn.
New curved beads are on the to-do right now list! We'll see how that goes~ they are always a bit of a challenge.