It
has been rather cold here recently, well below zero and the trees and deck are
covered in ice which got me thinking of this large, bold chawan. The glaze and
its unique, piercing color remind me of the cold and not just any cold but that
deep, bone chilling cold where moisture becomes ice almost instantly; the deep
chill of late Janurary. This evocative, rich, fractured blue seiji chawan was
made by Ikai Yuichi and though bares some resemblance to his master, the late
Shimizu Uiichi, this glaze and its characteristics are unique to this potter
where the glaze thins out at the top and the rolling, gravity induced cascade
creates areas of thickness as it moves down the bowl. The fingerprints where
the potter held the bowl have become thick with glaze which along with where
the rest of the glaze terminates as a seductive boundary of blue separating the
glazed from the unglazed foot of the chawan. There is simplicity in this bowl
that is balanced with the complexity of the glaze structure creating a sense of
fractured ice, layer upon layer like an infinite wonder of nature itself.
Beyond the aesthetics of this chawan I find my mind wadding into the technical
and marveling at how just a handful of clay, a few raw materials and a very
small percentage of iron are all transformed by several thousand degrees in an
act that at times both potters and collectors take for granted even if
chemistry and a dash of alchemy never does.
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