The ‘Starry Night’ Bonsai pot and other beautiful pieces

Hello, I am Yuki, an owner of the Japanese bonsai pots online store YUKIMONO.

How's your weekend?

Some new bonsai pots came to me from Hidemi Kataoka (Shuuhou), the bonsai potter of Tokoname recently. When I opened the parcel and saw them, they took my breath away. Some pots were almost like jewels, another was a work of art.
If you got such fabulous pots, it would be hard not to show them everyone. Well, let’s see!

●Shinning many colors

This oval pot is so fabulous that you can appreciate it just as a piece of art.

The glaze is translucent and has a beautiful smooth gradation of the deep green, blue, yellow and white color. Around the edge, the covering with white glaze shines beautifully in the sun. I think any deciduous tree would look fantastic with the glaze.

●The mountain range in the distance

This one with a covering of several colors of glazes is also a wonderful piece. 

The running deep green glaze on the white makes the unique patterns and they look like the shape of mountain range visible in the distance. I hope someone gets this pot and puts in a nice tree that would suit it very well.

●‘Starry Night’

The last one is very colorful. I am not sure whether everybody would like it, but I like it very much, especially the flowing patterns with the yellow glaze. 

Don’t you think that it reminds us of the famous picture, ‘Starry Night’ of Gogh? 

Some bonsai enthusiasts may see it, and will complain, for example they might say, “This pot is strange, and the color is too bright and too strong so it will be difficult to suitably match such a pot with plants.” 

I understand what they may say, however, this beautiful pot came out of the challenge undertaken by the potter, therefore we, the users, may make more effort to pursue the best combination of plants with such a pot. 

I do hope you who will be lucky enough to have this pot in your hand, and to enjoy planting with it in your style.

All pots in this post are made by Hidemi Kataoka (Shuuhou) of Tokoname and they are available in YUKIMONO online store.Please come to see them!

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My first Kintsugi experience

Hello, I am Yuki, an owner of the Japanese bonsai pots online store YUKIMONO.

Kintsugi is a Japanese traditional technique for repairing broken ceramic with natural lacquer and gold or silver. A few months ago, I participated in a Kintsugi workshop that was held 7~8 times over 4 months and I repaired my broken bonsai pots. 

knead natural lacquer

Though it takes a very long time (at least a few months!), and it is highly difficult for me, I really enjoyed the repair process and was very impressed by this traditional technique.

This is one of the bonsai pots I repaired. It had a chip in the edge.

Last year, right after I bought it, the pot was hit inadvertently and got damaged. That was very unfortunate for me. I couldn’t throw it away, and left it as it was. 

Put brokes pieces　

My broken pot was not only repaired, but also transformed into a new pot with a beautiful silver pattern. I think that’s the charm of Kintsugi, and represents what exactly Kintsugi is.

It is said that this technique developed with the tea ceremony in the Muromachi era (1338~1573). According to some sources, masters of the tea ceremony in this era appreciated the repaired crack with gold on the tea bowl as the scenery of somewhere when they had the tea ceremony. They found beauty in the crack on the broken pot. That view made Kintsugi not only a repairing technique, but also a way of art.

Instead of Kintsugi with natural lacquer, a new repairing technique has begun to be used recently. It is also called Kintsugi, and it uses synthetic lacquer, (actually it isn’t lacquer, but a kind of paint), to repair ceramic. As it doesn’t use natural lacquer, the new Kintsugi is easier and doesn’t take as much time as the real Kintusgi, however, the final condition is more sophisticated and beautiful with the real Kintsugi I believe.

Finished!

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The exhibition featuring bonsai pots

Hello, I am Yuki, an owner of the Japanese bonsai pots online store YUKIMONO. The bonsai potter, Hidemi Kataoka’s personal exhibition is held from May 31 to June 5 at the gallery of Noritake-no-mori in Nagoya. He, the fifth generation in a family of potters in Tokoname, has worked on ceramics under his professional name Shuuhou since 1992, and was certified a “Master of Traditional Craftsman” in 2005. Since 2013, he has held his bonsai pots exhibition at the gallery of Noritake-no-mori every year.  Though lots of exhibitions displaying ceramic tableware are held here and there, events featuring bonsai pots are rare, so I, a bonsai pots enthusiast’ come to see his exhibition every year. They are new works of Hidemi His exhibition has not only his bonsai pots, but also some beautiful bonsai which are put into his pots by his friend, bonsai artist, Mr. Koji Nagasawa. It seems that they are displayed to encourage visitors to get his pots to enjoy planting. Obviously that is succeeding as fascinating visitors, such as me, saw bonsai displaying there and purchased many of his pots when I visited for the first time. Hidemi-san(the rignt side) and bonsai master, Nagasawa-san. Happily, I had a chance to take part in his exhibition by preparing and displaying bonsai with my bonsai master this time, and it was, and is, a great honor for me.  　 About 2 weeks before his exhibition, my bonsai master and I began preparing for making bonsai. We visited some nurseries, picked up nice trees that would suit Hidemi’s pots, thought about nice combinations of trees and his pots, and put them into the pots. It was a great joy for me to ponder what tree/plant would be the most attractive to show in his pot. Also, it was obviously a precious opportunity to satisfy my primary concern of what the best combination of plants and bonsai pots are. If you are interested in bonsai or bonsai pots, and fortunate to be staying in Nagoya this weekend, I would advise you to see his exhibition. Of course the admission is free. Thank you for reading YUKIMONO blog post! http://yukimono.com/