Oni-Glazing: Just Enough Dick Lehman

Appears in the January 2022 issue of Ceramics Monthly.

I was visiting Robert Yellin in his Japanese gallery; it’s been almost a quarter of a century. After a morning in the storeroom, opening dozens of tomobako—the wooden presentation boxes with silk fukurohimo ties—I’d finally learned how to correctly re-tie them. Because I was unable to read the Japanese characters on the boxes, each opening was a surprise and delight: a private exhibition for myself. 

After looking through the boxes, I viewed the small library of books Robert had for sale. There I saw photos of some work by Nahiko Tsukigata that have lived on in my memory. The book was titled Oni-Shino, translated literally to Devil/Demon Shino. But Oni can just as appropriately be translated as rustic, excessive, or over-the-top. 

Lively Results

Using only a Shino-style glaze and long wood firing, Tsukigata created works of such drama, movement, energy, punctuation, complexity, and physicality that my memory of those images not only stayed with me, but also inspired me, and oddly morphed into my own unique memory of them. Years later I saw again the images that had so moved me; I’d remembered the works quite differently than they actually were. But what hadn’t changed in my memory was the sense of them: the aroma of excitement and energy they carried.

In my most recent article for Ceramics Monthly, “Triple-Glazing: Acknowledging Inspiration and Chasing the Image,” published in the April 2020 issue, I explored applying three glazes on a single pot: investigating not only how to keep that much glaze on the pot, but also the lively results. The relative success with triple-glazing led me to wonder what would happen if I were to put even more glaze on pots. Could I somehow capture the kind of energy, physicality, excitement, and surprise that I associate with my memories of seeing photos of Tsukigata’s work?

Motivated by Morphed Memories

The Oni-glazing exploration has been full of painful failures. Keeping up to 10 glazes on a single pot in a single firing, without it crawling or peeling off, has been quite a challenge. But gradually I’m learning. In my application processes, I’m dipping, pouring, brushing, trailing, and spraying wet glazes. I’m shaking dry wood ash, volcanic ash, colorants, fluxes, and frits. I’m also using low-fire commercial glazes, slips, stains, and underglazes as part of the process. I use diluted white glue, sodium silicate, and low-temperature glazes as part of my approach to keeping the glazes on the pots.

Allowing myself to be motivated by my morphed memories rather than any of the rules I’ve taught myself to follow has been critical to moving forward. The works that are successful capture a sense of wonder and allow me to marvel at results that I cannot really make, but finally only receive.

Most of the works that I have made over the course of my career have had some kind of distant Japanese-pottery antecedent. My saggar firing, side firing, long wood firing, and now these Oni-glazed works take something Japanese as part of their origins, but I’m clearly not making Japanese pots. Mr. Tsukigata would likely not recognize his impact, nor would he probably even like my work. But I think it necessary to acknowledge my influences. 

Perhaps the nicest compliment I’ve ever received came from Takuo Kato—one of Japan’s Living National Treasures (Ningen Kokuho)—who really seemed to understand my approach to making. After looking at my work for a long time, he said simply, “Your work has the aroma of Japan. But it’s not Japanese. And I like it very much.”

All in the Pursuit of Wonder

If I could sum up my career, this is what I would say: I try to work with care, respect for the process, and truthfulness, all in the pursuit of wonder. I want to make works that cause me to take a second look. I want to be surprised. And, I want to marvel.

I want to make works that humanize, that invite others into contemplation. I want to make works that are meditative; works that come to me as gifts, rather than achievements or purely a commodity. I want to make works that might somehow encourage community, rather than self-elevation or competition (and if competition, then only with myself), works that reflect mutuality—even vulnerability—instead of conquest. 

If the works encourage us to stop for a moment and reflect, there’s an opportunity to forge a connection to something that may previously have been unfathomable—an opportunity to enlarge our visual literacy. Always, to see with new eyes is to reclaim wonder, respect, care, and awe. For both maker and viewer/user, to experience awe and wonder allows us to dream, and dreaming is one of the things that makes us most human.

I’ve sometimes been asked if I would share the recipe for my Oni-glazed results. Of course, it’s impossible to do so. In effect, I can’t even share them with myself, because the results are always different. Just imagine the variables! But at this time in my career, I find the excess, the Oni, of these results to be—for me—just enough. 

In a way, every kiln opening reveals the previously unimaginable; perhaps not unlike the surprise and delight of opening that roomful of tomobako in Yellin’s gallery, all those years ago.

the author Dick Lehman lives in Goshen, Indiana, where he also maintains a studio practice. To see more of his work or reach him, visit www.dicklehman.com and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Lehman.