Oil Spot Sakazuki

This is one of the two Daisen Yaki pieces I have, and it is most certainly stunning. In fact after trying for quite some time to accurately capture the oil spot effect on the inside of the piece, this is the best I could manage. In person it looks so much more vivid, like silver blue veins of some sort of precious stone running through the white glaze of the cup.

Even more amazing is this cup is staining, and I am starting to learn that in fact there are very few glazed ceramics do not stain in such a fashion. Something which I initially believed was exclusive to Hagi Yaki. In fact I am quite looking forward to the staining of this piece, that seems to starting to slowly occur on the outside of the cup, which is a just plain white glaze.

It is this piece which has me wanting to view many more oil spot glazes, as while from a distance they can look plain, up close they seem to almost be captivating.

Local Artists

Walking around my local city today I found an art festival of sorts which consisted of many potters wares, one of them caught my eye, both in terms of simple shape, and in price. The artist is Jud Tanja, and the cups were sold under the title wine glass, but the shape and size screamed Yunomi to me. Though when talking to the artist he left a remark which was quite comical.

I inquired if he had ever heard the term Yunomi, to which he replied he had not, so I told him it was Japanese term used for Teacups, to which he replied "Teacups can sell for thousands of dollars I just make simple drinking cups, based mostly upon how ugly they are." While I can certainly see this for some Japanese ceramic pieces, especially Hagi. I think it is one of those things where if you are not open to learning to like the pieces for their Wabi appeal, then often they can just apear to be exceptionally ugly cups.

This cup though, the more and more I look at it the more I like it. The glaze honestly reminds me of two different colored Denim's that have rust markings on them from working with scrap metal. While I have never been a huge fan of the dimples in the side, the glaze on this is slippery enough, and the dimple just seems to swallow my thumb to the point that the cup becomes a part of my hand, I do not mind it so much with this cup.

This just goes to show you, that occasionally a great piece can be found at the bottom of the basket.