DEEP CHILL

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.