A new Face, with a story. Something different

Dale Cochoy

A friend/helper/student who comes to work and help me in my garden took a liking to my large Arboricola grouping and asked me to find him one when I went to Miami show last year in October. I told him I'd look for some rough stock because finished big ones keep getting more expensive.

I found a great piece of rough stock for him from my friend Mike Cartrett in West Palm Beach. It was pretty large, planted in a big round nursery can. Had lots of dead inside and had the center dead, but it was nice stock! I had an idea!

I got it for Matt and brought it home. Told him to overwinter it and clean it out and we'd work on it in spring together and "Fix" it.

He brought it back this late spring and it looked great . Very healthy and leaves already reducing from pinching.

We pulled it out of the pot and severely root pruned it shallow and severely cut back top until almost leafless.. Then I did what I had planned on from the beginning. I slowly cut and pulled part of the "Donut ring" of roots and plant apart until I seperated the "ring". I could then "open it up" to look at it. We finally decided to seperate it into two pieces. Then we rotated one piece 180 degrees so it matched up against the other real nice and planting tapered down on outsides...on both sides..

This left us with a REAL NICE long but narrow planting. I looked around for a pot and found a perfect sized L & W old chinese unglazed pot. It fit perfect! During the growing season Matt got it suprisingly healthy and leaf reduced. Leaf bunches were about the size of a silver dollar!

His wife called a month ago wanting to know about ordering a new pot for it because he wanted a nicer pot, but not an expensive one. I looked in chinese, japanese catalogs and only found a couple as narrow as we wanted with same length, and they were a few $.

I told her I could try re-firing the pot after glazing it. I'd done this before, but, no guarantees that it wouldn't crack in another high firing. This was an older chinese pot of lesser quality clay than they are using now.. Very thick and gritty red clay. She brought me the pot, he put the tree in a bigger pot to store it, but didn't know what I had in mind

Here is his pot "Before". I ran it through the dish washer to get clean. It wouldn't remove some of the old stains and neither did "lime away" but they were ALL underneath or inside so no problem.

Attached Images

	Matt pot before.jpg (38.4 KB, 85 views)
	Matt pot before2.jpg (36.6 KB, 88 views)

__________________
________________________________
If you want to be Different....
You have to DO something Different!
__________________________________________

Some people NEVER take the time to do a job right the first time....
but, they always seem to make the time to do it over again...
____________________________________________
Dale Cochoy
Wild Things Bonsai Studio
Yakimono no Kokoro Bonsai Pottery
Hartville, Ohio

Advertisement

Dale Cochoy

I used four different glazes to layer a design around the pot. And, I blackened the feet and lower part of the pot.
I high fired it higher than originally fired ( I could tell this becuase the clay darkened more). I was suprised, no cracks! and no more warping than the pot originally had ( A trademark of cheaper older chinese pots!)

He hasn't seen it yet. I think it will be a Christmas gift from his wife. It will be picked up tomorrow.

I'll try to get a picture of the tree in it after he gets it repotted again.
I hope you enjoyed this "Chistmas Story"

Dale

Attached Images

	matt pot front.jpg (62.8 KB, 127 views)
	matt pot back.jpg (59.6 KB, 69 views)
	matt pot corner.jpg (63.1 KB, 92 views)
	matt pot other corner.jpg (65.3 KB, 68 views)
	matt pot detail.jpg (67.9 KB, 84 views)

__________________
________________________________
If you want to be Different....
You have to DO something Different!
__________________________________________

Some people NEVER take the time to do a job right the first time....
but, they always seem to make the time to do it over again...
____________________________________________
Dale Cochoy
Wild Things Bonsai Studio
Yakimono no Kokoro Bonsai Pottery
Hartville, Ohio

midwestbonsai

Very cool, I didn't know that something like this could be done.
Love the new glaze.
-Paul

Dale Cochoy

I've done this before. With some of my own pots also. More risky with someone elses pot. No knowledge of the clay or firing temps. It does not Always work out so well
Dale

__________________
________________________________
If you want to be Different....
You have to DO something Different!
__________________________________________

Some people NEVER take the time to do a job right the first time....
but, they always seem to make the time to do it over again...
____________________________________________
Dale Cochoy
Wild Things Bonsai Studio
Yakimono no Kokoro Bonsai Pottery
Hartville, Ohio

john07940

Hi Dale.

As you say a risky business, I've done it myself a few times, like this pot you can get some interesting results, when it works, I particularly like pic 31394, the end view, stunning effect, congratulations.

I noticed in another thread you talked about "getting some moulds", It would be a shame to dilute your artistic talent, I tried this route briefly some time ago, they soon went in the rubbish bin, felt like I had become a production line, I think as an artist you have to be free of constraints and go with the flow of the moment, very difficult to do with a mould in front of you.
I know all the economic arguments favour mass production, but ,hell, money isn't everything!

Just my thoughts, and I'm sure others will have their view.

Regards.
John

stonemonkey

Hi Dale

Nice idea and the results are cool. I have attempted myself but with bad results as I could not get the glaze to stay put on the already fired pot. Someone told me to warm the pot up but I never tried it again.



Hi John

Totally agree with the mould idea. Even if you make the same style pot by hand they will always be different.

Shoji Hamada used to paint the same bamboo design on his work, even though the the picture was essentially the same each picture was in itself different from the other.

He had a saying for this, which escapes me now as I would hate to misquote, I shall unearth it and post.

Hope you are well

Regards to you both

Andy

__________________

john07940

Hi Andy,

Some glazes just don't perform well on already fired pot, but find some that do, and anything can, and usually does happen, biggest risk is cracking, even had one explode once, but the results are usually worth the risk, experiment and have fun.

Like to hear that quote, sounds a man after my own heart.

I know plenty of potters use moulds etc, and create some lovely pots, it just wasn't for me, I like to make pots with just my hands and a bag of clay, and a few simple tools of course, I swear sometimes when I'm making a pot my hands seem to know what they are doing, when my brain hasn't got a clue?
Happy xmas everyone.
John.

__________________
Regards from Derbyshire U.K.
www.johnpittbonsaiceramics.co.uk

Joanie

Dale, why did you use gloss glazes instead of matte? It looks rather garish to me. A nice matte would have suited the pot better, in my opinion. Or were there technical reasons?


Joanie

__________________

Dale Cochoy

John and Andy.
Thanks guys,
No worrys on the molds John. I just can't see that happening. But, some "name" potters seem to have NO trouble selling stacks of identical pots. I guess it will just have to be an eternal-internal struggle! I'm sure you both realize as I do, there's so much more to it than making a nice, unique, quality pot. There's extremes of "hype" and what I refer to as "Name Drop-ability".
I guess the best we can do is.....
Well, ...our BEST!

Re: Shoji Hamada.....now, if we could just get our pots to sell for what his old pots do.....molding wouldn't even be a question!

Andy,
Yes, I've cracked pots doing this and had a couple japanese pots badly bloat before. With the pot being already high fired I find it quite time consuming to re-glaze. Since not porous the glaze takes FOREVER to dry. I find having a fan blow on it really speeds that up. But, you are right, sometimes it just pops off after firing cooldown. That's why I told her no guarantees
It's much more reliable ( I'll use that term) if doing it on your own pot with known clay, glaze, firing temp.
Dale

__________________
________________________________
If you want to be Different....
You have to DO something Different!
__________________________________________

Some people NEVER take the time to do a job right the first time....
but, they always seem to make the time to do it over again...
____________________________________________
Dale Cochoy
Wild Things Bonsai Studio
Yakimono no Kokoro Bonsai Pottery
Hartville, Ohio