Bunzan Pots – A Few More

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Bunzan, Kaoru Ito

We were changing out a few items for display in the house – we decided at the first of the year we would only show bonsai pots for January – and we pulled out a couple of Bunzan pots to display.

Bunzan – An accent plant pot shaped roughly like a trident maple leaf.

Bunzan Artist mark

So what do you think about his pots?  He certainly uses a great deal of color. When we first saw them in 2007 many thought who would ever use them but since then we have seem them at shows in Japan.

Bunzan is the artist name for Kaoru Ito who was born on May 10, 1949.  He uses clay from Echizen and Shigaraki and blends them together to formulate his own blend of clay. He apparently doesn’t use molds and forms the pots with his hands. In recent years, most of the pots carrying his artist mark are from his students.  If there are two marks then it was likely made by his hands.

Bunzan – note the two chop marks indicating this pot was made by Bunzan himself.

With many of his pots they have to be viewed this way in order to admire his use of glazes.  He seems to be influenced by Toufukuji but my only evidence of this is through our own observations.

Bunzan

Bunzan

Bunzan

Bunzan

Bunzan

The following photographs are from within our green house where we used a number of his pots for accent plants. We truly enjoy his use of color.  Many of his pots are round with the scalloped edge, so we attempted to purchase as many of them as we could that were not in that shape.

Bunzan

Bunzan

Bunzan

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Springtime in the Greenhouse

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Accent Plants, Bunzan, Spring

We love this time of year.  About three years ago we decided to build our own greenhouse and we enlisted a few friends and constructed one that is 10×42 feet.  One might ask why but we have to admit it is full of trees and plants.

The thing we love about this time of year is how everything in the greenhouse just gets this early start.  Our maples have had leaves for more than a month now.  Today in Northern California it was 73 degrees but in the greenhouse it must have been in the mid-80s with lots of humidity.  It is a great place to repot bonsai as Peter Tea and I did last weekend.

So we thought you might enjoy a few photos of what is growing and blooming at the Edge’s.  If you live where there is still snow on the ground – our apologies!

Hen and Chicks - the size of the head is less than 1/8th inch

We have only been able to find this plant twice and both times they only had one very small 3-inch pot of it.  We assume it to be hen and chicks a type of succulent but if you know the name please let us know as we think it is an excellent accent plant for bonsai.  This time of the year the plant has these small beautiful yellow flowers.  This is in a hand made pot – potter unknown.

A close up

Polygala chamaebuxus var. grandiflora in a Bunzan pot

We first saw this plant at Boon’s as it was a gift to him from someone in Seattle.  Most of us had never seen the plant but we loved it.  Fortunately KJ was able to track it down and we purchased six 3-inch pots from the nursery. If you are interested, let us know and we will tell you where to pick it up.

In BIB we call this a cow pie!

We don’t know what this accents real name might be but we call it a cow pie because in winter that is what it looks like.  It is a Japanese accent plant and it is quite beautiful.  This one is growing in a small bonsai pot that Sam carved out of a solid block of clay.  Yes, our water here is terrible just look at the white marks on the pot.

A close up of the leaves

This plant will grow to the size of the container.  A small pot small leaves – a large pot very large leaves.  We currently have 12 pots of this and growing as much as we can so that we can propagate more of it.  If you are interested in some, drop us a email and when we have some for sale we will let you know.

The cow pie flowers - when you see these you know it is Spring!

For those with a good eye – yes those are Bunzan pots in the background.

New Japanese Maple Leaves

Zinfandel Grape Leaf

Beautiful and delicate

Without using a macro lens this detail is simply lost in normal photographs.  KJ’s camera did a nice job of capturing the detail.

Succulents in Spring

We love succulents and have many of them in the greenhouse. This time of year is great as many of them flower. We have no idea what the name of this plant might be.

What a color palette

If you know us well you know that we believe the ultimate creator is God and he uses an incredible color palette!

Well we hope you enjoyed these photos and if you live where there is still snow on the ground or Spring hasn’t quite sprung it is our wish that these photos give you hope for the Spring to come.

Bunzan Pots

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Bunzan, Kaoru Ito, Pots

About two years ago, Boon Manakitivipart introduced me to a few new pots he had found on one of his trips to Japan.  Interestingly enough the potter chop spelled Bunzan.  For those of you know that know Bonsai Boon the irony is obvious.

Bunzan Drum Pot

His use of colors really fascinated KJ and I so we undertook to find more of these pots and build a collection.  As you will see from some of the following photographs, his pots have a faint reminiscence of Tofukuji glazes though his pots shapes are not as refined as his.

I asked Yoshi to see if he could obtain a bit of background on Bunzan.  He reached out to Ms. Shima the proprietor of Bonsai Howawa to obtain a short bio on Bunzan.  Kaoru Ito uses the name Bunzan for his pots.  he was born on May 10, 1949 and began making pots by hand when he was 24 years old.    Bunzan does not use molds and produces his works by the touch of his fingers.

KJ and I have collected over 40 of his pots for our personal collection and to give away a few to close friends.  We enjoy his use of color.  Many of his pots are round or oval with an occasional square or rectangle pot to be found.  He also on a rare occasion creates a pot that represents items like acorns, squash etc.

His use of color is fascinating.  Photos really don’t allow you to appreciate the vibrancy and saturation of the colors he uses.

This is one of our favorite pots by Bunzan. Even though the shape of the pot is plain the glaze is extremely good.

Here a number of his pots so please enjoy and click the image for a larger version of the photo.

Bunzan’s studio as expected is small with pots everywhere.  Boon took theses photos on his last trip to Japan.  Fortunately he was kind enough to allow KJ and I to collect three new pots which will be the subject of a future post.

Bunzan's Studio

I hope you have enjoyed reading about this potter.  Please post your thoughts about his work.

Merry Christmas to all of you!

Sam and KJ