PEANUT BUTTER & CHOCOLATE

When I first saw this chawan and read the box I was immediately transported back in mind-time to the old Reese's peanut butter cups commercials, "you got peanut butter on my chocolate".  The box reads; SHIGARAKI-ORIBE and though I have heard a number of things paired up with either, the combination was a bit new to me. This chawan comes from the inventive persona of Kengo  Saeki where almost anything would seem possible as longs as he doesn't stray outside the laws of physics, where old feudal locks become wood fired vases and old koma-inu become fanciful, whimsical and even comical caricatures of centuries of traditional representation.    

Like many of his Shigaraki chawan this Shigaraki-Oribe chawan was wood fired and is a study in his forms and texture where the tactile qualities and aesthetic decision making wrestle with each other to see who becomes the dominate player but like many competitions, a draw is called as they are equally matched. As you can see the paddled texture completes the sturdy, almost angular form as it it was hewn from a block of stone or close enough, clay in this case. The form fits well in the hand and despite its presence it is neither too heavy nor to light, it would seem that Kengo Saeki landed smack dab in the Goldilock's zone once again. Shigaraki-Oribe, the term grows on you and the more I think about it the more natural it sounds.