A sturdy, bottle-shaped flower vase with a rolled, flaring lip and two small clay lugs — mimi, 'ears' — on the shoulder.
One side faced the heart of the fire. Wood ash fell thick across it and melted into a cascade of olive-green and gold glass, pooling in drips and spatters over a pewter-blue ground, crusted and raised like lichen growing on old stone — in Bizen this ash is called goma, 'sesame'. The other side stayed a quiet red-brown, scattered with tiny golden beads of ash like stars, with one rough patch where something rested against the pot in the kiln and left its print, and a soft round botamochi mark near the foot.
Unglazed Bizen stoneware, wood-fired in one continuous firing near Bizen, Okayama (GPS 34.7456°N, 134.1894°E). Its colour and markings are kiln transformation (yōhen) — the record of earth and flame in a single moment, not a pattern anyone chose. One of a kind, shaped by human hands, and impossible to reproduce. Traceable to the kiln that made it.
Dimensions
Height: 155 mm
Width: 76 mm
Mouth: 38 mm
Capacity: 350 ml
Weight: 300 g
Fragile by nature and packed for the journey. Ships worldwide from Japan.
