The
chawan illustrated is from an old Tsukigata Nahiko catalogue, it is Oni-Shino
though somewhat dark and ominous and punctuated by the bold kintsugi repair now
holding the bowl together in bold and perfect imperfection. I have often looked
at this illustration and the conundrum it poses; what it was about this
particular chawan that made Tsukigata go through the herculean effort to
salvage and repair the pot? I have seen a number of pictures where he is
purposely breaking pots with a hammer so his typical sense of "quality control"
seems to have eluded this bowl, the question still remains, what is it about
this chawan that he felt compelled to save and re-envision the pot. I doubt I
will ever get a thoroughly satisfying answer but every now and again I go back
and study the photo with an eye to understand how this pot stood apart from
others that found their way in to a pile of shards.
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