Another Sake Set

I've been on a roll with these sake pieces... Really, I'm making a special set for a customer, and I want to offer her a number of pieces to choose from. The stoneware cups were glazed with four different standard glazes from our studio and reduction fired to cone 10.

The flask is porcelain, electric fired to cone 10 and then decal fired once again to cone 05. The kanji is an old Japanese poem that nobody I know can translate.

The decal really makes the piece successful. Without it, the eye is drawn to every imperfection in the all white form. But now, it looks complete and the imperfection of the form just says that the piece is hand made.

Tokkuri and Ochoko Part II

I felt a bit like a kid in a candy store this Friday when I got pots out of three different kiln firings—gas, wood and electric. The main thing I had on my mind were these tokkuri and ochoko (sake flasks and cups). Both flasks were fired in the electric kiln, one is porcelain with white glaze, the other is stoneware with wood ash. I not only sprayed wood ash glaze on the stoneware pot, I dusted raw wood ash powder on top of it, and side-fired it resting on sea shells.

The shino sake cups were fired in the gas kiln in reduction, and the dark area is actually wood ash glaze that I sprayed on top of the shino glaze, not carbon trapping. The other sake cups were wood-fired, and I couldn't be much happier with the results.