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Tag: ミッチ・アイバーグ

A Unifying Respect: New Ceramics by Mitch Iburg

By:
Ai Kanazawa
August 9, 2021Ceramics Mitch Iburg

Ceramics by Mitch Iburg in our shop ->

Minnesota-based potter Mitch Iburg’s latest collection of work is quiet, with simple forms and surfaces. The work reminded me of the unglazed and mostly undecorated Yayoi period pottery in Japan’s ancient history, an era generally accepted to be between 300 BCE and 300 CE.  When I told him this, Mitch reminisced about the time we first connected in 2014 and said, “[back then] my interest was more in the very aggressive and bold wood fire surfaces.”

Ceramics by Mitch Iburg made in 2021 with foraged Minnesota clay, sand, and minerals.
Wood fired Tokkuri made by Mitch Iburg in 2014, when Mitch was more interested in melted ash deposits on wood-fired work

I enjoy looking at Yayoi pottery. Whenever I visit Tokyo’s National Museum, I’m one of the few visitors pottering around in the dark and deserted first floor of the museum’s Heiseikan wing where there is a chronologically arranged exhibition of Japanese archeology. I have often wondered what caused the drastic change in the style of pottery from Jomon (14000-300 BCE), which was highly decorated with ostentatious forms, to Yayoi that is very minimal and often with no decorations.

Stem cup from the Yayoi period ca. 100–300 H. 4 3/4 in. (12.1 cm) D. 3 7/16 in. (8.8 cm) Earthenware
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

“After firing in mostly electric kilns for a few years I get much more joy from the simple qualities of the natural clay,” Mitch explained. “Much of the historical work I find myself drawn to these days has a similar quality.” The Minneapolis Institute of Art has a collection of Chinese Han dynasty vessels, Korean Silla ware, African vessels, and several works from the Jomon and Yayoi periods, and Mitch says he discovers something new from them every time he visits the museum.

Tokkuri with Kaolinitic clay finish by Mitch Iburg, 2021

After learning what inspires Mitch, I realized that the draw of Mitch’s work and Yayoi pottery is the unspoken respect for the character of the surface. Mitch evolved to prefer the natural beauty of the exterior without obscuring it with ash, and perhaps the Yayoi people grew to enjoy the clay surface without decorations. Regardless of the era and background, people can identify simple, unpretentious beauty. And we can all share our fascination for the Earth and its history.

A Deeper Connection: Ceramics by Mitch Iburg

By:
Ai Kanazawa
July 25, 2018Ceramics Mitch Iburg

Ceramics by Mitch Iburg will be available in our shop from 9:00 a.m. July 25th 2018 ->

What sets the work of Minnesota potter Mitch Iburg apart from his contemporaries is a depth and intensity of effort that is profound but not immediately visible. While most potters begin their work by wedging their purchased clay in the studio, Mitch’s starting point is to go through local geological publications, survey maps, mining databases, and walking the terrain from where he acquires his materials to create his work.

Ash-glazed vessel by Mitch Iburg. By coil-building vessels, Mitch feels that he can add a sense of history through layers, similar to rock formations that document the conditions at the time they were deposited.

Many people might consider that going to such lengths of effort that Mitch does is pointless and conflicts with the more pressing need to be productive and efficient. But luckily Mitch doesn’t think so.

“I research and collect rocks, minerals and clays throughout Minnesota,” Mitch says. He gathers, tests, and prepares the clay all year around, which is at the heart of his work. Maintaining this commitment limits how much can be produced, but Mitch believes that it is crucial to know the origins and history of these resources to keep a strong connection to the natural environment that they came from.

Left: A clay exposure near the Minnesota River.   Right: Collecting felspathic sandstone  
Photos courtesy of Mitch Iburg
Crude kaolin from the Minnesota River Valley. Photo courtesy of Mitch Iburg
Test tiles made from blends of collected, unprocessed clay. Photo courtesy of Mitch Iburg

Mitch’s path to learning about clay began when he first saw Japanese anagama fired ceramics. “There was so much about them that I couldn’t quite grasp or understand, but I felt a strong, visceral attraction to them that compelled me to study wood firing and ceramics”, Mitch said.

It took a long time for Mitch to comprehend the appeal, but he recalls that, “one day, while working in the studio it finally hit me. I realized that it was like watching a tree swaying in the wind. The wind itself is invisible, but its power and movement become manifested and made visible by the branches and leaves. The vessels were similar to the tree in that they recorded the presence of larger phenomena – the passing of time, alteration of materials by heat, and the enduring life cycle of the Earth.”

Tea bowl by Mitch Iburg.

Mitch views his ceramic process as a tool for translating the sweeping and often unfathomable phenomena that have shaped our world into something tangible. Personally, I feel that the focused intension and stubbornness of Mitch in his approach allows him to create unparalleled work that speaks to us emotionally.

It also reminds me of the philosophy of tea that Okakura Kakuzo describes in his “The Book of Tea“, which is a “moral geometry, inasmuch as it defines our sense of proportion to the universe.” I feel that Mitch’s lifework is a similar effort to grasp that sense of scale.

Tokkuri by Mitch Iburg

Sincere, precious, yet humble, the attraction of Mitch’s work is similar to how I feel about the ancient unglazed pottery made in Japan called Sue ware from the 5th and 6th centuries. They were the first non-porous types of ceramics made in Japan, using the technique learned from the more advanced Koreans, who in turn learned it from the Chinese. Perhaps it is because in both Mitch’s work and Sue ware, I feel the earnest joy to create something hard and useful out of something that is soft and brittle found in nature.

In the past six years that I have known Mitch’s work, I have often wondered how long he would be able to continue to make pots in the way that he does. So, it is delightful to see that he has expanded his body of work such as the wheel-thrown tableware that intrinsically preserves a sense of connection to nature while allowing him to use a broader range of materials. He also recently was a recipient of the Jerome Ceramic Artist Project Grant from the Northern Clay Center to re-examine the role of natural materials in the field of ceramic art.

Wheel-thrown tea cups by Mitch Iburg. Creating food-safe vessels require the use of commercial silica and feldspar, but Mitch still researches the parent rock and only introduces materials that are closest to the region.

Mitch says that his development was helped by many of his fellow potters in the wood-fire community, which has forged a special symbiotic relationship between established and emerging artists. He points to artists like John Jessiman in Virginia, Nick Schwartz in California, and Samuel Johnson in Minnesota that have played crucial roles in helping his evolution.

I would like to think that Mitch’s approach is proof that nothing has fundamentally changed since the time of the Sue potters. That efforts that are seemingly invisible make all the difference over time, and from the seeds sown by a community that is willing to work together will emerge trees that will grow and sway in the wind for many generations to come.

Northern Minnesota landscape
Photo courtesy of Mitch Iburg
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