My desire to do pottery has been around al my adult life but I knew that it would take up so much of my time that it would substantially interfere with my full time rock cutting and collecting.Now that circumstances have forced me to cut back on stone work I have joined a pottery studio and spend about 5 hours of each weekday playing in the mud. After all those years of cutting stone playing in clay is a relief as you can make forms so quickly. I have always admired east Asian sumi-e ink brush painting and decided that I would like to have the option of having that type of spontaneous gestural marks in glaze on my pots. Bamboo brushes are part of the sumi-e tradition so I got and old piece of bamboo out of the basement ( due to my disability the I referred to is generally Packlithic) and it was split as shown after being cut . You cut near the node on the handle end of the brush so the node is retained and you cut the bristle end a bit longer than the bristle length you want so you can cut and shape the bristles as desired. I used a jade anvil on my lap and whacked away on the steamed bamboo with passion. Whack a bunch then turn the brush over and whack the other side for 30 seconds then return it to the boiling water while working on the second brush. After about a half hour I used a very sharply pointed knife to tease out a few strands that were stubborn. You can trim the brush with a very sharp knife or a pair of hand gardening shears. Tomorrow I can start using them in the glazing process , a new learning experience which will be even better becuse I have the choice of using a tool I made. My thanks to Packlithic who is very handy and my poor wife who was trying to work a couple of rooms away as I made lots of noise.
