Teaboats.. Bateaux a the..

Le bateau a the est tres utile dans la preparation du the chinois. A teaboat is very useful when brewing chinese tea. It enables the teapot to be kept warm.

This form is more open, Made in porcelain with a celadon glaze.

Here is a green Lonquan Celadon teaboat, this glaze in made with poplar ash.

I sell them also as a set with a water bowl. this allows more flexibility as one bowl can be used as a waterbowl, while the other is the teaboat.

Check my website michelfrancois.co.uk , or email me for details.click here/cliquez ici

2 bols a the

Bol a the cuit avec la methode black Seto.

Chawan type 'Karatzu' avec de la cendre de marronnier du Devon. This teabowl is for sale. check my website for details. michelfrancois.co.uk

Chestnut Chawan

Chestnut Ash is so magical to use. Each tree grows for one hundred years, cumulating trace minerals. They help make prisms that reflect the light. This ash is from Essex. The minerals in the clay have come to the surface, flooding into the glaze and sometimes the iron bleeds into a beauty spot. The shape for this teabowl is ancient called ch'ien, and is said to be one of the first shapes, when tea was almost a soup drink, drank with salt and onion. This teabowl is for sale. check my website for details. michelfrancois.co.uk

My Ido teabowl

Years ago I saw an exhibition in a small museum in Toulouse called Wabi cha the art of tea. 6 ancient Chawans were on show. I was moved by the feeling of gentilness and power emanating from them. Making tea bowls as a western potter today is not the same as making tea bowls in rural korea in the 12th century. I remember talking to an other potter friend, he was saying he wanted to be korean. He started to dress korean, eat korean,and speak korean. Thinking that would help him in his artistic expression. Only to realise that good pots come from an other place. You can meditate all day and still make terrible tea bowls. . In deed 'trying' to make 'good' tea bowls does not mean you end up happy with them. Nor does the way of just mindlessly making thousands and thousands in the hope that randomness and chance firing will spare a few that will get the 'Wabi' status. The fact is 'true' art and beauty come from the action of learning. Making tea bowls for me is first an act of learning. putting into practice the synthesis of what I have been gathering in skill and energy at the time I make. I'm analysing now but the making of tea bowls comes out of a strong desire for making them. It is a free act, not a self conscious one and I enjoy it very much.

This bowl is inspired by the 'Kizemon' bowl which is an 'Ido' type korean rice bowl. I used english terracotta mixed with porcelain and added coarse cornish sand. I poured a slip over it made with jindezehen porcelain slip I made from some clay I got given after a demonstration of chinese potters in Aberistwith a few years ago. Over the slip I glazed the bowl with a thin ash Karatzu glaze. The physical making is creative with ideas pulled together, like a child inventing his own house in the woods. This teabowl is for sale. check my website for details. michelfrancois.co.uk

New Porcelain work-new Website

I would like to let you know of my new website michelfrancois.co.uk Je vous informe que mon nouveau site web est en ligne. michelfrancois.co.uk I have been working a lot in Terracotta this year. Somehow It has made me come back to porcelain in a big way. I feel confident and relaxed with porcelain now. It still is a demanding partner but worth it sometimes. All these pieces are for sale now. Email me for prices and sizes.

this is a largish porcelain bowl inspired by Sui dinasty ware. This duck egg white glaze is a suptle adaptation of an ancient chard of this period. This new glaze was made possible through slight consistent glaze modifications happening over many kiln firings. Made with some cornish stone, it reflects the light and changes with it. Inside the pot goes blue outside it is more white. Good for a large used water bowl or as a fruit bowl.

A large Sui dynasty chinese shaped bowl - a timeless classic

There is an essential purity to this ancient shape. A friend warmed to this large shape for a bowl. It reminded him of a Buddhist begging bowl.
The next image is a very large porcelain bowl made for a commission of eight bowls making up an installation for outside.

The making of Black Seto - called Seto Guro

It is a dangerous business to be in Pottery.
Or maybe that is the way I like it.

In case you were wondering this it is not Raku.

Raku is fired to 980c, black Seto on the other hand is fired to 1300 in a reduction atmosphere.
Then the kiln is opened to halt the reduction and the pieces are taken out red hot. The quicker they come out the blacker they go.

When dipped in water they generate speckles.

There is nothing like it...

 either you get the stars or the dark side of the moon ...

Mesmerising.

Longquan Celadon

Après avoir fait plus de 200 pichets Alsaciens pour le Eden Project
J'ai voulu faire quelque chose de plus libérateur tout en utilisant cette belle forme de pichet. Parfait pour acceuillir des fleurs.

Ce n'est pas juste les composantes de la glazure qui donne le bon résutat, le ton la couleur et la luminosité.   Ce rendu comme les bols juns et le résultat d'un équilibre subtil entre les composantes de la glazure et  la façon dont les minéraux présent dans la terre se transmutent dans celle ci au moment de la cuisson dite en 'reduction'.

Je tente d'expliquer simplement ce type de cuisson en 'réduction' .
Au moment ou le four atteint 1000° je réduis l'oxygène présent dans le four en bloquant le conduit d'air à la sortie du four, l'oxgène va chuter de 20% à 0,2 %. C'est à ce moment que les oxyde et les minéraux dans la terre vont être tirer vers la surface car ils sont portés par l'oxygène qui va les déposer dans la glazure.

J'ai utilisé de la terre de Cornouailles avec de la porcelaine, la glazure est du type Longquan, et 10 % de cendre de peuplier Breton à été ajouté pour lui donner cette allure tendre..

La luminosité est obtenu en ouvrant le four a chaud à 1300° et en laissant cette cuisson se refroidir subitement jusque à 900° moment ou il faut refermer la porte.

Chaque cuisson, chaque sceau de glazure est différent
ce bol à eaux usées est un peu plus bleuté..

J'aime tout particulièrement ces grains de beautés, particules de fer présente dans la terre qui ont voyagé à travers la glazure pour fondre a la surface..



Bols à eau usées ou Pichet à Fleurs - 60 euros frais d'envoye 15euros mon mail mrmfrancois@gmail.com
                                                    
Celadon water bowl and Flower Jug -

For the US  90 $ 30$ delivery.
for the UK 50£ and 10£ delivery.

Encore Plus de JÜN..

More JÜN..

JÜN

        This way of working is ancient . . .

Horse chestnut Ash with no pigments or copper, when these came out of the kiln it felt like almost a miracle..

        The price is 125 £ or 150 Euros plus 15£ delivery or 20 E
        For the US 185$ plus 30 $ postage

         My email mrmfrancois@gmail.com

Glazure à base de cendre de chataigner aucun cuivre n'a été utilisé pour donner ce rendu;

leurs prix est de 150 Euros plus 20 E de frais d'envoye

mon mail mrmfrancois@gmail.com

Viva el Karatzu !

Raku?
Hagi ?


Nah...
Karaztu man, Karatzu ROCKS my world.
Sometimes classifications are for the Birds or have their meaning in a particular context, and out of that context mean nothing but a few lines in a book.

Vive le Karatzu...















Each large Karatzu bowl is for sale at 100£ plus 15£ postage or 130 Euros plus 30 Euros postage

For the US 150 $ plus 35$ postage please email me at mrmfrancois@gmail.com for images and details.

Chaque bol est à 130 euros plus 30 euros de frais d'envoye.