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Snow, snow, pottery, snow, budo, snow...
It's been snowing pretty well non-stop since my last update... the ankle-deep slush has been replaced with snow that's up above my knees in some places, and that's on flat ground where it *hasn't* been piled up into drifts! Of course, underneath all that snow there's the solidly frozen ex-slush; the snowploughs have polished it to nearly mirror-smooth ice in some places on the roads, and it's vastly amusing to watch cars trying to make it up the hill, tyres spinning madly as they inch forwards. The buses have snow chains on their tyres, but so far I haven't seen any private cars with them on. Odd, considering the number of roads around here that have lots of snow and ice on them - the water systems are only on the main roads in town, and the snowploughs can't do everything. I've managed to NOT fall down again, at least, though I've seen two Japanese students do beautiful pratfalls on ice-covered stairs. Owwwie...
We had another 'Experiences in Japanese Culture' class yesterday, the first of five visits to Ohi-sensei's pottery studio. Today we each made two tea bowls and a 'freestyle' thing - I made a weird vase. It's lopsided ON PURPOSE, so that makes it art instead of a failure, right? *heh* Ohi-sensei (the eleventh-generation master of the Ohi-yaki pottery style, which is a VERY big thing here) declared that my first attempt at a bowl was a 'nice plate' because it was too wide and not tall enough; he fixed it for me, and my second attempt got a nod and a 'good'. Next time, we're going to carve them, to finish off the form and texture the outsides a bit... then there's bisque firing, glazing, and firing again, and we're going to drink tea out of our new bowls. Assuming they hold water!
The most famous 'trademark' glaze you get on Ohi-yaki tea bowls is a rich red-brown, but understandably enough we aren't going to get to use it on our wonky attempts; we're going to be using an off-white glaze that ends up sort of crackled-looking instead. It's still going to be pretty, I think.
It snowed lots more while we were in the studio messing around with clay. *heh*
And then there was Budo today... that was fun. I managed to get through most of it without mistakes, though when it came to pairing up and attacking each other with wooden swords, I got slightly beaten up. We couldn't work out what we were doing wrong, but Anemone kept hitting me on the wrist when it was my turn to use the sword. The person using the jo IS supposed to 'defeat' the person with the katana, but not that literally... it turned out that we were both holding our weapons too close to our bodies, which changed the angles enough to get me whacked. Not seriously - it didn't hurt much, and I don't think anything is going to bruise - but Anemone was scared she was going to damage me. Then when we swapped over, I was scared I was going to damage her! We ended up giggling about it, and discovered just how hard it is to aim your stick properly when you're laughing...
And it's still snowing...
We had another 'Experiences in Japanese Culture' class yesterday, the first of five visits to Ohi-sensei's pottery studio. Today we each made two tea bowls and a 'freestyle' thing - I made a weird vase. It's lopsided ON PURPOSE, so that makes it art instead of a failure, right? *heh* Ohi-sensei (the eleventh-generation master of the Ohi-yaki pottery style, which is a VERY big thing here) declared that my first attempt at a bowl was a 'nice plate' because it was too wide and not tall enough; he fixed it for me, and my second attempt got a nod and a 'good'. Next time, we're going to carve them, to finish off the form and texture the outsides a bit... then there's bisque firing, glazing, and firing again, and we're going to drink tea out of our new bowls. Assuming they hold water!
The most famous 'trademark' glaze you get on Ohi-yaki tea bowls is a rich red-brown, but understandably enough we aren't going to get to use it on our wonky attempts; we're going to be using an off-white glaze that ends up sort of crackled-looking instead. It's still going to be pretty, I think.
It snowed lots more while we were in the studio messing around with clay. *heh*
And then there was Budo today... that was fun. I managed to get through most of it without mistakes, though when it came to pairing up and attacking each other with wooden swords, I got slightly beaten up. We couldn't work out what we were doing wrong, but Anemone kept hitting me on the wrist when it was my turn to use the sword. The person using the jo IS supposed to 'defeat' the person with the katana, but not that literally... it turned out that we were both holding our weapons too close to our bodies, which changed the angles enough to get me whacked. Not seriously - it didn't hurt much, and I don't think anything is going to bruise - but Anemone was scared she was going to damage me. Then when we swapped over, I was scared I was going to damage her! We ended up giggling about it, and discovered just how hard it is to aim your stick properly when you're laughing...
And it's still snowing...
gah
And that colour we whilst be using on our poteths is most definetly pink. "Off white" my asseth! Admiteth it, alreadyeth! `tis faggyt pinketh! Now, the olde ambyr of his most respected family on the other handeth.. if onlyeth...