I love the individuality of each tea bowl and the way that each one is personal to the artist. The size, detail, and type (summer or winter) can show parts of the artist's style/ traditions.

As much as I love the tea bowls themselves, I honestly envy the artists much more than the work they produce. Each bowl is so imperfect, but each uneven ridge and little bump is a beautiful part of each of the bowls' stories. I personally have such an issue with creating something that isn't straight, symmetrical, and generally "neat", so I feel like my own tea bowl's odd shape is a bit forced. These artists are obviously very comfortable with the work they do and can create something so unconventionally beautiful. I'm really envious of that skill.
I found a pretty cool link if anyone is interested - http://www.e-yakimono.net/html/tsujimura-shiro-jt-03.html

The more the bowl is imperfect, the more I like it. Though all the bowls are individual and they require a lot of time, the more creative the piece is the more interesting. Some bowls look like brains, others like marble and some look like you could have just pulled them out of the Earth, these details help show the artists' style and creativity. The bottom bowl,however, does not tell me much about the artist besides the fact that they are a perfectionist, but I do appreciate the hard work and effort the artist must have put into the bowl.

I agree with Heather in that I like the individuality of each bowl, and how each one seems to represent the artist that made it. It's also interesting to see all of the different ways one can make a tea bowl because, while in class we are sticking to a traditional type of bowl, some of these don't look anything like those. For example, some of the bowls above use cracks in the clay to make a statement, and I once thought that that would look messy, but looking at these bowls now makes me think otherwise: it seems to be more sophisticated, thought out, and artists as each crack seems to be placed in a certain spot (there must be hundreds of cracks though). Generally, I think the imperfections of some of these tea bowls adds to their own perfection and makes them unique and more appealing to the eye.

Looking at these Teabowls, I can truely appreciate the artists work and the spirituallity they use to create such beautiful artwork. Like Mr. Dillon said in class, the color and texture of the bowl describes a certain place on earth, and the lip of the bowl resembles hills due to their imperfection. I agree with Nadia, the more the bowl is imperfect, the more enjoyable it is to look at because you can clearly see that it has been sculpted by someones hands. And a few of them do look like they were pulled straight out of the Earth, having rough outsides and discolored splotches on the surface. But again, the outside does not hold as much significance as the inside of the bowl. I appreciate all of these pieces but for me, the one that stood out the most was the cream colored Teabowl with characters written all over the surface. I like this one because it harks back to the tradidional Japanese tradition of where Teabowls first originated.

Unlike Jessie, I have trouble making ceramics that are symmetrical, perfect, smooth, etc,. Looking through these photos and seeing that few of them come close to "perfect" was reassuring. I like to play around with the clay, letting any imperfections that surface remain unchanged. Granted, I won't leave an unplanned hole in my pot, but a cut here and a thumb print there only adds character.

I would agree with everyone that the imperfections make the piece enjoyable to look at. The dimples and slices force the eye to not only look at the shape of the piece but also at specific parts of the whole. Similar to 2D, shadows and contrast add zest and flavor to a piece. An imperfect piece is more captivating than a perfect piece because there is simply more to look at.

Also, after looking at these photos, I'm really excited to glaze. I think all of our pieces will look way better after adding some color and possible cracks.

Oh, and number two is my fav. I like the color, the cracks, the "square" shape, the abstract accents of grey and brown, the gashes in the middle, the cuts to the right, and the glob far left. There is just so much to look at besides the shape!

I agree with Theo. I am more of a fan on the pieces that are not completely perfect. When I work on a piece, I like to let my imagination take control and whatever it looks like will look like an interesting and good piece to me. I really like all the pieces that have completely different colors of glaze on them and not ones that have painted symbols on them.

I love the texture and unique shapes of each piece. I think that each artist has done a great job with creating unique feet to match their piece.Some of the pieces has a gradual slope to the foot, but other are a lot more "square" and less round and smooth. I agree with Theo that my favorite piece is the second one because of the rugged shape, the sharp edges and the white glaze. Even though the piece looks very tough, hard, and sharp, it still has a soft delicate look to it with a round figure. I think it is a beautiful piece.