Soderstrom Pottery Blog

Please join us at our 4th annual Holiday Open House on December 5th!

The hours for this year’s event are:
Saturday, December 5th from 10amm to 8pm

We will have a pottery sale, a children's clay corner, do studio demos, a Raku firing at dusk, and have food and drinks.

We will be having our annual night time Raku firing at 4:30. Come join us around the kiln and bonfire and see the Raku process.

We will also have brush paintings by Sumi-E painter Bob Schmitt.

Also, in sharing with others this holiday season, we will be collecting non-perishable food items as well as gently used adult’s and children’s coats and mittens. We will be donating these items to the Minnehaha food shelf and PPL.

10% of our sales will be going to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.

Please email me at daniel@soderstrompottery.com if you would like directions to our place.

The other night we were sitting outside around the fire. My neice and nephew wanted to hear a ghost story. I told them that I would share a "mysterious" story instead; one I learned while living in Japan.

The Story of a Crane Wife
(Tsuru no On-gaeShi)

Once upon a time, there lived an honest young man in the countryside of Japan. One day, while he was tilling a paddy field, a crane suddenly came flapping down from the sky. It was a white crane with truly beautiful feathers. The bird was apparently wounded, and did not fly away, but came reeling towards the man and weakly fell to the ground. Wondering, the man checked the crane’s feathers and found an arrow stuck in the base of the wings. “Poor crane! That’s why you can’t fly!” So saying, the young man pulled the arrow out and washed the wound clean.

The crane soon recovered and showed its delight by flapping its wings. “Now,” the man said to the bird, “be careful never to be spotted by a hunter again”. Thereupon, the crane circled over his head three times as if to express it’s thanks and then disappeared high into the sky after uttering a shrill cry.

The young man resumed his work, deeply contented that he had done a good thing. At nightfall when the stars began to appear, he returned to his home. To his great surprise, however, he found a beautiful young woman, whom he never seen before standing at the entrance. She greeted him, saying, “Thank you for your day’s hard work”.

Startled, he wondered if he was entering the wrong house, but the woman said with a smile, “This is your home and I’m your bride," "I don't believe it!" the man shouted. "I'm so poor no woman will ever agree to marry me. "Besides, I have only enough rice to feed a single person!" "Don't worry"; the woman replied. "I have brought rice." So saying, she took rice out of a small bag and began to fix supper. The man finally consented saying, “How strange that you should force me to marry you! Well, do what you like!” and thus the woman came to live with the poor young man.

Oddly enough, the small bag the woman had brought always provided the amount of rice they wanted, enabling the couple to lead a happy life. Time went by and one day, the woman asked her husband to set up a workshop for weaving. He borrowed money and had a special room built. Thereupon, the woman entered the room, saying, “Please never look in here for seven days”. And for exactly seven days after that, only the sound of a loom was heard from within day in and day out. The man felt as if he were waiting for as long as one or two years, but remembering her request, he did not peep into the workshop.

The seven days passed and the woman came out somewhat haggard. Held in her hands was a roll of resplendently beautiful cloth such a he had never hoped to see. “Now,” she said to him, “I have woven a roll of cloth. Please take this to the town market. It will sell for 100 “ryo” (a big sum in terms of ancient Japanese coinage).” The next day, the man went to town and the cloth brought a surprisingly high price just as his wife had said. Startled and delighted, he hurried home. Upon reaching home, he found his wife already closeted in the workshop, and only the sound of the loom was heard. He wondered how she could weave such beautiful cloth apparently without treads. Soon he could no longer contain his ardent desire to see her, and stealthily peeped into the workshop, breaking his promise never to do so.

To his great surprise, he could not find is comely wife there. Only a crane was weaving cloth with white feathers plucked from is body. Promptly realizing that the man was looking in, the crane stopped weaving, staggered towards him and said: “Well, my dear husband, you have seen everything. Now that you have found out what I really am, I can no longer stay here, to my great regret. I am the crane who was saved by you. To repay your kindness, I have so far served you in the shape of a woman. But from now on, please regard this half finished cloth as myself and keep it dearly.” The crane then flew up with her remaining wings and vanished into the sky, never to return to the man.

Daniel
www.teafox.com

In Japan, most tea is drunk out of small cups called Yunomi. These teacups don't have handles like their western counterparts. Instead, the cup is supported by a raised foot on its bottom.

While living in Japan and studying pottery, I had many opportunities to make Yunomi. In fact, one day after I had been studying with my teacher for some time, he told me that I would begin my “professional lesson.” He told me that my professional lesson was to make Yunomi. He went on to say that I would only make Yunomi. I would make only Yunomi, until I could make 100 in a day.

What follows is a series of photographs of me showing how Yunomi are made on my homemade Treadle Wheel in my studio:

Notice how the Yunomi is formed at the top of a large mass of clay.

The cup should be formed with as few steps as necessary.

After the cup is lifted from the mound of clay, the top of the mound will be re-centered and a new cup will be formed.

One difference between Japanese and Western methods is that the wheels in Japan rotate in the opposite direction from those in the U.S. and Europe. Therefore, my teachers in Minnesota assumed I was left handed when they saw my throwing style that I acquired in Japan.

Another major difference I noticed was that cups are "thrown off the hump" meaning many cups are made from a single mass of clay that is centered on the wheel. Here in the U.S. cups are usually made from small single balls of clay that are each centered individually.

Yunomi are a joy to drink Japanese green tea from. I have some of my cups available in the Teafox Shop. My wife likes to use them as stemless wine cups. If you want to learn more about my pottery, please visit my pottery website.

Daniel

Bringing you Japan's finest green tea
www.teafox.com

As many of you know by now, Sarah and I have started a new business, importing and selling Japanese green tea. Some of you had heard the story of why and how we began this new endeavor. For those who haven't, I would like to share my story with you:

I first became interested in Green Tea while living in Japan. One day while strolling through the streets of Akita, I happened upon a small shop that made traditional Japanese shoes. When I went inside, the shop’s owner, Taka san, was working to attach new straps to a pair of richly lacquered wooden geta. He spoke virtually no English, but his daughter who was visiting was able to translate for us. Mr. Taka told me he wanted to share Japanese culture with me and invited me to return in a week to have tea with his family at their home which was in the back of the store. There I was given my first taste of Japan, in a small cup. We spent the afternoon together sharing small sweet bean cakes and fresh Green Tea. I was invited to return many times after that day, and friendships were formed despite our lack of a common culture or language. It was only later, while studying Japanese Tea Ceremony that I was able to realize that serving tea is a way of sharing oneself with others.

After returning to the United States, I spent years in vain trying to recapture the taste of Japan. I looked everywhere trying to find the teas that I grew to love in Akita. They were not the same. I went to specialty tea retailers and wholesalers and bought many teas, but found they were not the same. I thought about contacting my friends in Japan to ask them if they could send me fresh, authentic, high quality Japanese tea, but soon realized that my tea consumption would eventually become a burden to my friends. One day I had an epiphany; I would seek out a small tea garden and import the tea direct from the grower. After sampling a mountain of tea from many tea producers, I found the tea I had been searching for…

Information about our Tea
Our tea comes from a small family owned tea farm in Shizuoka, Japan. Their tea farm was established in 1790 by the Matsuda family and is named Shinchaen, meaning “True Tea Garden.” The tea garden has been passed down through eight generations in the Matsuda family. The current owner of the tea garden, Masahiko Matsuda has been awarded “Number One Tea Taster in Japan” by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries.

Shinchaen is one of few tea estates in Japan to do everything by hand. They do not use automated machinery to process the tea leaves as almost all tea farms in Japan do now. The tea is dried and rolled using traditional processes, in order to preserve quality and tradition rather than to maximize efficiency and profit. In addition, the family uses organic fertilizers and natural pest controls.

As a small family owned tea garden, Shinchaen was very happy to be partners with us, a small family owned pottery. We both value quality, tradition and craftsmanship. It is a tremendous honor for me to be able to import and sell their high quality tea.

Please visit our website at www.teafox.com

When I began studying pottery in Japan, my teacher told me he would teach me starting with the most basic of lessons. I began by learning the correct way to hold my hands when wedging the clay to remove air bubbles. When he felt I was ready, he took me to the pottery wheel and showed me the correct way for form a “teacup.” Once I could make this simple form, we moved on to the bowl. After the bowl, I learned to make a plate. I was not allowed to learn to make a new form until I could successfully make the one I was working on. As the months went by, I learned to make a variety of pots including bottles, urns and many large pieces. I began to wonder what I would learn next. On a chilly day in November, I arrived at the studio and met my teacher. He told me that I would begin my “professional lesson.” I excitedly agreed and waited to find out the complicated form that would be the start of my professional lesson. He told me that my professional lesson was to make the “teacup” (the form I had started with.) He went on to say that I would only make teacups. Everyday I would make only teacups. I would make only teacups, until I could make 100 in a day. He would watch me and correct me, until I could form the teacup in just 5 movements of my hand.

Working in this way, I became very efficient. I began to reach a point where I could form the teacup without conscious thought. The forms were not the result of cleverness. I was freed from my Ego. They were unique to me, but not because I had sought out to create unique forms. They were unique to me, because I had simply made them. They communicated a part of me that could not be explained by words. These are the purest forms that I make today. They are the most genuine. If, when making a “teacup,” I should accidentally place a “flaw” in its surface, I simply leave it. There are no “flaws.” Each imperfection leaves the piece uniquely perfect!