A wide, open lampshade whose rim rises into five tall peaks, curling like the tongues of a bonfire. Its walls are pierced by hand with sweeping trails of teardrops, all flowing in the same direction as if carried on a rising draught, with a central column of round openings and a small clay ring set into the rim.
Lit in a dark room, it becomes the fire it was shaped after: the open crown glows from within, and hundreds of points of light scatter across the walls and the surface around it. The kiln marked the pale cream clay with soft flushes of scarlet hidasuki — 'fire cords' — deepening to red along the peaks.
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: 160 mm
Width: 210 mm
Weight: 1,000 g
Fragile by nature and packed for the journey. Ships worldwide from Japan.
