You Know Me

A Yunomi, pronounced YOU - KNOW - ME, is a venerable earthenware teacup, being taller than it is wide and often perched on a delicately trimmed foot.

Pairs of yunomi are called meoto, or married couple, yunomi. Married couples have the same pattern.

Meoto pairs sometimes come in different colors, usually in different sizes, and often in subtly different shapes.

One question that might occur as you sip your rock-less teacup full of Tennessee whiskey:

Are my lips daintily puckered up to the husband or the wife?

I attended a panel discussion of five renowned functional potters from the Mingeisota (Mingei + Minnesota) pottery tradition.

"...the nourishable accident - often it is the flaw, the scar, the unintended mark that becomes interesting."
~Randy Johnston

I am obsessed with dumb luck. I was on the edge of my chair waiting to jump up to ask the panel of potters:

What role does the nourishable accident play in working your pots?

I obsess about the question of planning versus just letting shit happen. My current mantra is

Forget about a plan, just prepare the shit out every potential eventuality.

I never got to ask my question. Someone was always popping up to ask about the economic realities of being a potter, or to ask what it means to give yourself permission to take risks in your work.

Finally some bag lady suggested all of the clay-enabled potters in the room donate yunomis, single or mated, to a silent auction to fund disaster relief for earthquake-ravaged northeastern Japan.

After the bag lady's plea, my role that accidents play question felt benignly self-absorbed since dumb luck just snuffed out thousands of Japanese people and sparked a near core meltdown in the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear reactors.

The philosophical pillar of the mingei craft tradition is

hand-crafted art of ordinary people

Is it possible to be both ordinary and conceited?

YOU - KNOW - ME. It's all about Bob.