Some of bowls are grilled in the kiln piece by piece, and those marks are from tongs used to take them out of the kiln. Tongs may or may not leave a mark on a vessel at the point of contact. The potter can cool the tongs in water before they enter the kiln and their cooled surface immediately harden the glaze, so...

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A stunning teaware made on the island of Shodoshima. There is several styles of Kankake and some of them are decorated with mapple leave. You can see the word Kankake - かんかけ, written in Hiragana inside the mapple leaf and the potter's stamp. A stunning teaware made on the island of Shodoshima. There is several styles of Kankake and some of them are...

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Gyokuryu kiln runs by Umehara Jiro, son of potter Umehara Haruhito. Umehara-san was born in November 1952 and started to turn the potter's whell at around the fifth grade of elementary school. In 1967 he was graduated from Tokoname High School's ceramic industry and in 1975 he established Gyokuryuu kiln. During his life, Umehara-san won many prizes and was awarded many times: -...

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Ichikawa Kozo (1930-2009) was a talented potter from Kyo. He studied under famous master potter Kusube Yaichi. During his life, he won many prizes and awarded many times: 1952 - first time participated in the prestigious Nitten Exhibition 1955  - won the Governor’s Award at the Kyoto Prefecture Art and Crafts Exhibition (after that he won this award three times) 1966 - invited to...

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Japanese pottery often has a net of cracks that covered all the glazed surface. You can see these crack when look at Hagi, Kyo, Raku ware and many other. And you can think that this is some kind of defects, but it is not. In Japanese, those cracked patterns are called kan-nyuu (貫入) and it is actually a desirable feature of the pottery....

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