Bonsai containers in Vietnam

In Vietnam potted plants are omnipresent and during my brief visit in 2016 I scrutinised every flower pot in my way. The containers were made of concrete, ceramic and stone. It seems that concrete pots were most common. They are used for larger trees and miniature landscapes. Some were painted with bright colours and looked rather tawdry. The examples shown in the images below are somewhat more sophisticated.

Needless to say, there were lots of ceramic pots. Most of them looked tacky. Images below show examples which looked particularly native.

There was one type of ceramic containers that I really liked. Initially, I saw them in a couple of antique shops in Hanoi and then I came across of a small collection in a private bonsai garden in Hoi An where I took the photos shown below. I am not sure if these containers were locally produced or imported. They could be either antique or vintage. I am not sure of their age because the deterioration of the glaze can be attributed to the low temperature firing used in their production. If these pots are earthenware than it’s just a matter of few decades for the glazes to start peeling off. The actual decoration on these pots is very crude, but the glaze deterioration gives them this aged look and the ephemeral rustic quality akin to wabi-sabi.

Finally, I saw a small number of containers carved out of stone and when I looked though my photos found only one shown below.

This post is probably a very incomplete survey of containers used for bonsai in Vietnam, but that’s all I got.

Wood-fired bonsai pots made in 2017

2017 was uneventful for me in terms of bonsai or bonsai pot making. I made only ten bonsai pots last year, but those that are wood-fired are worth showing off. Below is probably the best pot I made last year. Decorated with rutile glaze.

Below is a pot with a Chinese cheng-yu proverb inscribed with underglaze.

The one below is decorated with a blue glaze that got altered by natural ash.

Below is an unglazed pot with natural ash formed on one side.

Last but not least, another unglazed pot made in Namban style.

Origins of Nanban pottery: Hội An, Vietnam

I was aware of Namban pottery for a long time, but since my trip to Japan in 2015 this interest became deeper. This fascination arose from the fact that Namban’s origins are shrouded in mystery and I am a person who likes to get to the bottom of things. The best explanation of Namban origins I found so far is here http://lomov.blogspot.com.au/2015/09/namban-bonsai-pots.html.

South-East Asia has always been a suspect provenance of Namban pottery and last year, I made a Namban discovery of my own, while traveling in Vietnam. During a visit to the Museum of Folk Culture in Hội An, I came across of a ceramic piece that simply “screamed” Namban at me (see image below left). For comparison, the image below right is a contemporary piece of similar shape and size made by a renowned Japanese potter Yukizyou Nakano also known as “Gyozan”.

I learned at the museum that the pot has been made in the Thanh Hà village near Hội An. Potters of Thanh Hà village have been making functional low-fired unglazed pottery since the beginning of the 17th century. Nguyen Dynasty records of the time tell us that their wares have been transported by river to the nearby commercial port of Hoi An and from there exported to the coastal provinces of Central Vietnam and abroad. All this got me thinking and I realised that six historical occurrences took place at the same time, all of them at the beginning of the 17th century. Here they are:

1. Potters settle in Thanh Hà village near Hội An in Vietnam.

2. Hội An becomes the most important trade port in the East Vietnam Sea.

3. Tokugawa Ieyasu issues permits to Japanese merchants to trade with Vietnam.

4. A thriving Japanese trading settlement springs up in Hội An.

5. Increasing demand for rustic and unassuming ceramics for tea ceremony in Japan.

6. Earliest Namban pottery appears in Japan.

When the facts line up like that, Vietnamese provenance of some of the early Namban ceramics becomes quite plausible. I could also add here that the oldest extant Vietnamese ceramics have been found in Japan, in a tomb at Dazaifu and they date back to 1330. Vietnamese ceramics made in the 15th and 16th centuries also have been found in Okinawa, Nagasaki, Hakata, Osaka, Sakai and Hiroshima.

One architectural remainder of the former Japanese presence in Hội An is the Japanese Bridge. At the beginning of the 17th century Japanese merchants in Hội An were influential enough to build this bridge across the river to trade with the local residents (see the images below).

As a more general afterthought, I would like to finish this post with a photo of a lidded jar I saw in Vietnam and I hope you see the connection with the topic of this post. Lids of such jars were converted into bonsai containers known today as Namban.

My Fergus Stewart pot

This year’s AusBonsai Market held at Auburn Japanese Garden was great. My deep gratitude to the organizers. I was just curious about what’s new and one stall selling bonsai pots immediately got my attention. The first thoughts that came to my mind were wood-fired ceramics by a highly skilled potter, but not a career bonsai pot maker. All pots were on the larger side, round, skilfully thrown on a potter’s wheel. Some of them were about a meter in diameter! You have to be a potter to appreciate that. I had to know who the potter is and the stall owner was too happy to tell the story. A Scottish ceramic artist Fergus Stewart with a passion for wood-fired ceramics worked in Australia between 1981 and 2002. Around 1999 while working at the Strathnairn Ceramics Workshop in Canberra, Fergus Stewart was commissioned by a Canberra bonsai grower John Remmel to make a series of bonsai pots. The examples of pot shapes and glazes given by Remmel were illustrations from “Matsudaira Mame Bonsai Collection Album” published in 1975. Stewart had to develop several glazes to match the illustrations in the album. Most pots had either a chop mark “FS” or signed “Stewart”. It turns out that the lot of them was never used and ended up for sale in this year’s bonsai market. Many of the pots had no feet and looked more like your typical English handmade functional stoneware rather than bonsai containers. Perhaps this was the reason why this stall was largely ignored by the market crowd. It’s a shame because they are a product of great craftsmanship and would work with certain trees. Nevertheless, in some instances Stewart did manage to capture the essence of a bonsai pot and I simply could not resist buying one of those (see image below, round 6 x 40 cm).

By the way, Fergus Stewart is currently teaching ceramics and works in Lochinver, Scotland specializing in wood-fired and salt-glazed ceramics. It doesn’t look like he is making any bonsai pots these days.

The Nappy Pot

Pat Kennedy of "Mirkwood Forest” pottery is my most favourite bonsai pot maker in Australia. He inspired me to start making bonsai pots and shared many of his techniques with me. I just wish I could meet with him more often. I once asked him about the surface texture on one of his pots and he told me that he uses a disposable baby nappy. The nappy I needed came along with my one-year-old niece last year. After that, I couldn't come up with any more excuses for not trying to make a similar pot. Images above show my first attempt at the ‘nappy pot’. By the way, ‘nappy pot' is exactly how Pat called it.

First pots this year

Tried to use tenmoku, oribe and tin white glazes together with inconsistent results. Some of the test pieces are even less impressive than the two pots shown here. The main problem with the pot on the right is that all my suitably sized trees have the same foliage colour as the pot. Makes the composition repetitive and dull.

Asian section, The State Gallery of New South Wales

Today, I took my daughter to the State Gallery of New South Wales. I always enjoy visiting it, but this time the Asian section had a couple of things related to bonsai. The entrance of the section was marked by a large Chinese viewing stone from lake Taihu. I am used to seeing such stones in Chinese gardens, but seeing it in a sterile setting of a gallery surrounded by lots of negative space gave it a very contemporary air (see the image below).

Another exhibit that drew my attention was a beautiful flower bulb bowl. It was about 30 cm in diameter and even had couple of drainage holes (see images below). This simple, but elegant porcelain ware with a blueish celadon glaze was produced in Jingdezhen during Yongzheng period of Qing dynasty (1723-35).

I would like to finish this post with something not related to bonsai. Some 19th century Japanese tsubas. All inspired by nature (images below).