 I'm Jay Fidel, this is Think Tech Hawaii. We're having a special show today, Community Matters. We're talking about the ceramics of Hawaii show that just opened for the first time the ceramics of Hawaii has had a juried show. And guess what? The juror is here with us and one of the exhibitors, the ceramicist is also here. Let me take a moment to try to introduce them, but they can also tell you more about themselves. To my far left, okay, is David Kurooka. He is the juror of the show, which meant that he looked at all the 400 pieces that were submitted to the ceramic show and found 90 worthwhile. And in the show, the show is fabulous, by the way, that I mentioned that. This is really professional, global quality stuff, great. And he is just finishing up as professor of ceramics at San Francisco State University. We've been there since 1972. That's 45 years. Let me see if I got the math right. 45 years. How did you do that? You only look at 35. Never mind. And he's moving back to his, you know, he's moving back home because he's a local boy. And he's moving back to Kauai in Hanalei there in Hainah, Hanalei and where he's putting his new studio. And I'll let him tell more about himself, okay, David? What did I miss there just now? Pretty much got everything. It took me 40 years to figure out how to move back to Kauai. There's not many jobs there. And so I had to finish out my term in San Francisco to come back. We actually live on Kauai, have lived on Kauai four or five months every year. I considered myself commuting to San Francisco to work from Kauai. So we've kept our relationships there, kept our friends. So we, you cannot just go back to the jungles and retire. You have to have a basis. Kauai has a long memory too. My wife is from Kauai. Susan and Kalloy. Yeah. Oh. It's always mine. Was that right? I knew we had something in common. Oh, yes, yes. That's Sanford Verrata. He's a director of Sink Deck. And he was exhibiting two pieces in this show. And that means that David selected two of his pieces. And it's an interesting story. But let me tell you that Sanford is a real estate consultant. He's a calligrapher. We saw his calligraphy, what, about a year ago? About a year ago. Yes. And now, just last night, we saw his ceramics, two winning pieces in the show. So can you describe the pieces that David selected? Yes. There are two chawan, or tibbles, Japanese ceremony tibbles, which is what I'm doing mostly. I started doing pottery again nine years ago. And almost from day one, I've been doing chawan, or tibbles. And David, I was lucky enough for David to select two of my chawan. One is sort of traditional and rakufart. And the other one is more contemporary with a lot of color in the glazing. They're here. No, they're in the show. They're in the show. Okay. They're in the show. People are watching them walking around right now. And now the ones in the show, they're connected, right? It's called day and night. One is day, one is night. Can you distinguish between the two? What I intended to convey was a fact that there was this sort of range of tibbles through its history and its development. So the day which is a tibble that was rakufart is basically black, just one color, which is the way the early tibbles were. They're either black or red, depending on the color of the clay. And then white became another color, eventually another glaze, a long time after. So it was starkly the black. Black or red. Black or red. And so I try to use that to illustrate the fact that that is a traditional tibble in form and in finish. And the other one, which I call day, is lighter, white, contemporary, more free form. And that was to try to say, well, OK, we started with the night, the tradition on the black. And then on the other side, we have the day, which is the light, white, and more carefree. Yeah. And indeed on the other side, it was the other side of the room. The other side of the room. Yes, right. The other side of the room. So, David, you did not know that these two pieces were actually night and day connected? No, I didn't. I was, I didn't have the names or I didn't have the titles of the pieces. And sometimes I wondered if I had the titles, I might have thought differently sometimes. I wonder about that. But no, I didn't. I just picked from form. I didn't, I did not pick from tradition or the importance of tradition at all. I come, I approach it from an American contemporary artist. I approach it from just form, visual form. I know, I know it's subjective, but I have been in the field for almost, almost 50 years including going to school, so I trust my instincts. I trust my own. Why didn't you go to school? I went to San Jose State University. Is that what you asked? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I had a prolonged program, but then I got out with my masters and I later had extra units and the San Francisco State awarded me a doctorate. Oh, very nice. It's very unusual for a ceramic. Yeah. There's two around, I think. Yeah. So what was it about Sanford's pieces that appealed to you? Again, it was just, I picked all the bowls. I mean, there was a time when I went back and picked bowls out because I thought the exhibition also should have some small, delicate, you know, exacting things, you know, items like this. In other words, the larger ones were easier to see. And so it was easy to grab all the large stuff, but then coming back, then I had to go back and refocus and look at the smaller things. Exactly. Contrast and contrast. Yeah. Because there was, you know, the beauty, you have to look at it, you know, before the big ones kind of stick you in the eye and the smaller ones you have to piss. So did you decide to limit yourself to the 90 pieces or was that just a number of pieces that appealed to you? Yes. I was going to actually, in my mind, mathematically, I was going to take less. Ah. But you were irresistibly drawn to 90, eh? Well, that's what was, I felt that particular day that there was the best. I asked that I could sleep over, sleep and think about it because I know the next day I might feel differently. Yeah, yeah. But the schedule was pretty tight. I just flew in from Kauai on Tuesday, Jewry, and then left. What's it like being a juror, this sort of thing? I mean, you know, you have to be in touch with your own artistic sensibility. A lot of this is like intuition based on 50 years of experience. Yes. And you know what you like, but sometimes it's hard to say exactly why. Exactly. It's just, it's kind of, for me, it's just work. You know, and sometimes they would go, oh, you're lucky you're doing ceramic, the romance of ceramic. For me, it's a burden of process. I mean, it's because it cracked. As soon as I think it's good, it's screwing up, it's cracking and you have to redo it, rethink it. I'm not that technical, that's not how I lead myself. Again, it's more emotional than intuition. And then the technical stuff followed, but I have to pay attention to the technical to make it succeed. So switching it around a little bit, because I'm sure you also do your own ceramics yet. Yes. What is the creative process like, see if yours and the San Frans are the same. What is it like to create pieces of ceramics? What are you thinking of when you do it? What's in your mind at the time you design and you build? Well, you know, again, it varies so much. But myself, I was on the wheel a lot. And so a lot of my forms are wheel-based. I very much enjoy the Porter's Wheel. And in a matter, I mean, generally speaking, the Porter's Wheel is more important on the eastern part of America, or middle America. Interesting. And in California, there's a lot of hand-building, figurative narrative statements. So it's not wheel-throwing, it's not really... Maybe it's because the east coast is more industrialized. No, the east coast is more like machinery. The east and the west is more, oh wow, the east and the midwest is more pottery. They make more tableware. In the grad schools, they celebrate making cups and they really study cups. And my school never studied cups. We studied sculpture, we studied forming space. Artistic. Yeah, artistic. It's not necessarily better. It's just how it is, I notice. Yeah, sure. Because I have to go by... If Caroline and I want cups, we have to go to the midwest. Where people really like cups. That's really cute, actually. So, Sam, what was in your mind when you made these pieces? Let me say that one of them, the dark one, it's like velvet. It's got such a deep color, deep, dark, that you feel it might even be soft if you touched it. Right, right, right. And it's very unusual, actually, in terms of the texture and the way it presents. And the other one is sort of like that piece over there, which got color and light, and sort of a very high creative aspect to it. And it's sort of a graphical type, more than the simple dark one. Sure, sure. What was in your mind when you put these together? Well, for me, the beauty of pottery is to not have anything in your mind. Because so much of what is created is serendipitous. There are so many variables that come into play, or which one has very little control. It could be the type of clay and how it racks to the glaze, how the glaze racks to the heat in the kiln, how other pieces in the kiln will affect your piece. All of those, there is some, perhaps, idea of what to expect. But for me, it's almost always a surprise. So for the first one... That's a great thing. Yeah, it's great. The idea for me, why I do pottery is sort of an escape. And the way for me to escape is to not think. And it's sort of an extension of my Zen training, where the idea today is mindfulness. Well, in order to be mindful, you have to reach mindlessness, which in Japanese Zen training is Mushin, without mind. And consequently, the value for me in doing pottery and in shodo calligraphy is to not think. It's very hard to do, because unless you are technically skilled, you still have to do some thinking about how you're going to create whatever it is that you want to create. So for the Raku piece, in terms of... I had a basic shape, which is very traditional. And in the firing, Raku has this real charm in that it can go from almost this to that. I mean, the range of result for a novice like me is wide. But I wanted to do a dark piece, and so that's what it's a black piece. The other piece, which is I call day, because it's light and more maybe frivolous, I was inspired because when I was in Japan a few years ago, I went to the Sagawa Art Museum in Kyoto, outside of Kyoto. Of course, all art in Japan is in Kyoto, right? She goes in the street, I remember. Yes. And so the Sagawa Art Museum has Raku Pavilion, Raku 15, and his pieces were made in France a few years ago, and they had a lot of color, which is really exciting for me to see this kind of color in a Raku piece. So I attempted to be inspired by it and sort of copy it, well knowing that it was a very low-level copy, but nevertheless, that was the inspiration. That doesn't bother you, does it, David? No, not at all. Okay. One thing that these show is a variety of ceramics in Hawaii, because a lot of these are different kinds of firing, high temperature, lower temperature, Raku is very low, different glazing techniques, so these kind of reflect a lot of the work in the show because Hawaii is more, has all this knowledge now, it's not, you know, it took a while, it took a generation to get comfortable. And I like what they said about the changes or the unpredictability, because these come from the earth, the clay comes from the earth, when you dig in the mine, it's different here, the machine moves around the hole, the dirt's different, the chemical's different, the glazing is always different from bag to bag because the machine digs this part of the mountain, so each bag's slightly different, and you make a formula now, five years, you make the same formula, the materials are different, you know, it's just, so it changes, just because everything's always, it's from the earth, and it's definitely dug up, you know, not made. Sir, ceramics from the earth, many variables, many changing variables, and with all of that, always a surprise in the end. Let's go. See, I learned. So we're going to take one minute break, we're going to come back, I'm going to talk about these pieces you have on the table, we're going to talk about the show and the quality of the show, we're going to talk about ceramics in Hawaii right now, going forward, I'm so excited, I can hardly wait, but for the moment, we're going to take this very short break. We're back, we're live, we're here with David Kurooka, the drawer at the ceramic show in Hawaii, and San Fernando, who was a contender, a submitter person, and a winning, a winning ceramic artist to hear for this show that is happening right now, and it'll be happening until January 8th, so everybody can get a chance to see it. Yes. So what have we got here on the table? You guys are kind enough to bring a big box full of ceramics, some of them are absolutely mind-blowing, most of them are, for me. Can you tell me what's happening with these, why are they so beautiful, why, how can they be like this? Well, they're all Chawan, and what I brought was a sample of the pieces that I've made for the last nine years, and I just chose things that were different from each other, so that you see kind of a range in shape, in blaze, in discipline, in sort of color, and for me, each Chawan has a personality. Some not bad, some bad. So the ones that I really don't think too much about, I break up and throw in my garden. The rest I either give away, some I've sold and some I've kept, so I've probably made, I'm guessing around 800 or so, maybe Chawan. Prolific. And so I have now maybe a couple hundred left, and I keep giving them away. I got one today, actually. Yes, you did. You're welcome. And I sort of keep a range of my Chawan so that I can look back and see how I develop sort of a more kind of a retrospective and historic development of my skill and my creativity process. You don't use a wheel. No, no, this is all on a wheel. All on a wheel. It's all thrown. Some are a little bit altered more than the others, and this one, for instance, is way more altered than the others. The others are really straightforward. And T-Bowls have a number of styles, different styles, traditional styles. And I kind of focus on what's called Wangata. The Wangata shape comes from the traditional Buddhist monks begging bowl, the wood bowl that the Buddhist monks use to receive mainly food because monks, Buddhist monks were not allowed to have any possessions. So the Wangata is probably the more popular T-Bow shape, and that almost comes naturally to me. When I'm throwing, I just kind of let my hands sort of direct the shape, and of course the clay, you have to kind of be mindful where the clay wants to go. Do you watch your hands? Do you watch the wheel while it happens, or do you sometimes, you know, transport yourself away? No, I pretty much am looking at what's happening with the clay. As my hands lift the clay up and shape it, it's just kind of let the clay more or less dictate the form that it's finally going to be in. But Chawan, T-Bowls are traditionally three inches high, five inches wide. That's more or less, if there's a standard, that's sort of the standard. And so I fall into that, I'm doing bigger bowls nowadays just because I want to kind of break out from the traditional size. This would be a more traditional size, and this would be a bigger size. This is a Raku fire. And so basically what this shows is a sample of my work. I'm a novice, so I'm just beginning to learn about clay and Chawan. There's the thought of Wabi Sabi. Wabi Sabi is this idea of expressing rusticness, naturalness, imperfection, something that's unfinished and it's very well admired in Japanese art, particularly T-Bowls. And I'm searching for what that means, and I think the only way you can find it is just to do thousands of something. And let the clay find a way. And this is the thousands of something I'm doing, I'm doing T-Bowls. So those three over there look like the classic T-Bowls because they're all similar, at least in shape, not necessarily in texture. And this is, when you have these little cracks, that's the Raku, is that what it is? That's white crackle. White crackle glaze in Raku, and David knows all about that. He's a master at his crackle finishes. So in fact, I made that, I believe, when David was a juror for Raku Ho'olau Lea. And in fact he chose this one to appear as a contemporary T-Bowl, maybe seven years ago, something like that. One thing I was around that, let me pan, please. Very high temperature ones are pretty much turned to glass. And so I think it's interesting for your viewers, these are high temperature, high temperature. But the Raku-Bowls are much more subtle, and I think he appreciates the subtlety. You could tell the sound from looking at it. That's correct. And by the temperature that he's, it's almost like... You can make music. I thought that was interesting. What about that one in the far row there, that has a golden blue design? That is really beautiful. That was really interesting to me. What happened was, and this is sort of the charm of the unknown. So this is one glaze. It's called U-H blue. You say U-H? U-H. U-H. Well I don't know where this is. Is that where it comes from? U-H blue. And the charm of this piece for me is because we have this breaking up of the glaze. And you almost cannot plan that. At least I don't know how to plan it. This is the luck of the firing. And I like that. I like to see my glazes to be, to have a certain dynamic quality. And this has, this has that quality where it's breaking up and it's sort of doing something that you don't control and don't... It's hard to... It's really beautiful. It almost looks like it's carved. Yeah, that's, you know, to me what I like to see is a dynamic quality to the pieces, whether it's in the shape or in the finish and the glaze. In fact, David and I were having a conversation about this just last night and that ceramics is a very interesting art form because you have the shape itself, which is a structure. And then you have the glaze or the finish which is the decorative aspect. And so often you can have a shape that's beautiful and if the finish or the surface does not, is not consistent with that shape, it fails. People will not like it. But you could take a shape, a form that's very simple or even inelegant and give it a great glaze or a great finish or a great decorative aspect and it could be very successful. That's very interesting. So you have to put both the structure and the finish together to be successful. What David was talking about in the show was the discipline and the self-confidence. You have to have a certain confidence to make the piece and glaze the piece and fire the piece so that you have something that is admirable. How do I achieve that, David? Is there a pill I can take? I guess practice. Numbers. I believe in numbers. I don't know why else beats it. You'll self-teach yourself after a while but you have to do so many to find a mistake to learn to the next mistake. When everybody's good, you're not growing because you're just happy. When you finally come to the mistake, then there's a little growth. You go, oh, yeah, I was really fine and then you see better the next time. I have a hard question for you, David, which is one of your favorite over here. Notice the hesitation on that. Thank you. This glaze on the top is the same glaze here. That's too thick. That's right. It's the same. I can see the activity of the rutas. I can fall back into my technicality. I see things a little different. I think the glazes flow very well amongst the manganese, the copper. I'm thinking like that. But also because I'm thinking color and the chemicals that iron oxide, metallic oxide that produce these reactions. I know it's high temperature and I like the green. I think it's pleasant. Okay, well, since you were so quick on that one, I'm going to ask you a second question. What's your second choice here? I also like the lip. I think this is the most sophisticated. I wondered if this was the last one you made. No, no, this is one of the earlier ones. Maybe several years ago, yes. I thought that. Which is interesting because some of the earlier pieces I feel are more successful than the recent pieces. I think you have to look back with an open mind. Like you said, you're keeping a lot. I'll go back to the throwing. When I throw and I teach throwing, you throw for the inside. The inside form is important because the outside can always match. You can trim the outside. But when the inside's wrong, then the outside's going to be wrong. It'll be thick on the bottom and crack. So I focus them on the inside. It's really hard. With a ball, you never look on the outside. You only look on the inside. The beauty of the inside. Because the outside's going to be ugly. When you finish the ball, if it looks good, something's wrong. This means the inside's wrong. Something's wrong. The inside, you make the inside really good. The outside's really funny because it's holding up the inside. And then I just get leather hard, come back and fix the outside. Just a hint for today. So how about you, Safer? What are you like? What's your favorite one in this crowd? And if your favorite one is the same one, then what is your second favorite one? I can't really say I have a favorite. They're all doing different things. Perhaps one that I like a lot because I'm attempting to go into a little different direction with altering the form and attempting to be much more freer rather than something that's really clean. This is, I think, a very clean shape. This is freer and I actually kind of pushed it around when I was making it. And as I glazed it, I was not all that fussy about the glaze itself. I just kind of let it happen. This is Shino, which is a traditional glaze. Basically, Shino started as a white glaze from Japan. And as you can see, the foot is rather freely carved. It's not on the wheel. I just carved it. So I'm trying to break out from the more simpler form, the more straightforward form. But it's very difficult because what I've learned is in order to be skilled with this, what I would call the Wabi-Sabi approach, you have to be technically very proficient. And so what I'm doing now is I'm kind of going backwards. These two were attempted to be more kind of free form, more natural, more rustic, more old. I like that a lot. Purposely, what I was doing with glazing this was finding a way to make the piece look old. And I think I'm successful with that. But then what I've learned today in order for me to get better at altering the piece and getting more artistic with the form is I have to go back and get better with my skill. So I'm going backwards and starting all over again. I'm just throwing cylinders and trying to make real clean cylinders. Very consistent. And from then, I think after I get to a comfort level beyond where I am now, I can kind of break it up again. Break up the piece. Is this a good approach? Whatever works. Bowls are not cylinders. They're kind of different. Cylinders are bottles and stuff. So it's a little different approach to throwing. But whatever works. I agree with you. These are very handsome, too. They're very much my person. They're almost hand built, right? Yes. They're almost hand built. Nice in your hand. And so I guess you got brave after you did these in the middle of that. Right, yeah. These are later ones. These are earlier ones, yeah. You've seen pottery everywhere. You've seen ceramics for 50 years. I like your opinion about this show. In general, the 90 pieces. For that matter, the 400 that were submitted to you. Well, especially the 90 where there was, within that, there was some really nice work. And the state foundation came about three. But as to Shimazu, I see her work on the mainland. She's very active out there in the mainland. There was another one that was quite active in the mainland. I'm forgetting the name. I'm sorry. But a lot of, you know, someone goes, I tell some people, why don't you go to school more? And they go, well, I don't know if that helps. Or somebody who went to school. I said, but the time you put while you were going to school, that time really helped your work. And then graduate school takes another three intense years. It really helps your work. So it's not the school so much it focuses you in on work for years. And then when you come out, you will head. Because of that schedule. And because that period of time you devoted to the work. So I think education is important. And it shows. A lot of the work shows that education. So what do you think of Hawaii as a place which has people, has potters like this? I mean, are we special? Yes, yes and no. It depends on the individual. A lot of the information here, besides formally from the university was brought in. These Hawaii craftsmen, University of Hawaii, they bring in lecturers and they bring in outside influences. And that really helps the place. Because we're isolated, right? And we have to bring people in to keep it moving forward. So Samford, now that you have two pieces exhibited, your value as a ceramicist is way high. For example, now you could sell your pieces for a fortune. Have you sold anything lately? I'm not so much sort of thinking about selling my pieces. I give them away mainly and I found a great way to gift my bowls. The Pacific Buddhist Academy has an annual fundraiser and at the fundraiser they have a silent auction. So I feel it's a great way for me to give my pieces to an organization that I admire and it's being bought for somebody who would like to have my piece. So it's a win-win and I'm giving it away and yet somebody's buying it and helping an organization succeed. It's a labor of love. And the other is you can learn by looking at your work. There are times when the bowl comes out of a kiln and I look at it and I say, oh, not so good. And then maybe I take it home and I leave it on my shelf and I look at it again, oh, not too bad. And after a while I think, oh, pretty good. You're right, you learn from it. But for me the value of what I do, the pottery, is a process. You know, you're sort of getting lost in what you do. And I'm not too concerned with the end result. It is what it is. It's fine. I admire some of my work. I enjoy looking at it. But I kind of sort of put it aside and go on. And that's the overarching point about discussion. It's the process. It's not whether you win or lose. It's how you play the game. So that's a lot of process. Thank you. Thank you, David Kurok. It's been great to learn about ceramics and the ceramic show through you. Aloha. Aloha. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, David.