Tea Bowl made in Loubignac, Southwest France

The piece is made by Kichizaemon XV with western Raku technique during his stay every summer between 2007 and 2010 in Loubignac in the Corrège region of southwest France. The piece is made of sticky red clay from Spain and being painted with a low-transparent, a yellow, a copper and a cobalt glaze. It looks as if an abstract expressionism. The finger marks remaining of Raku’s hand holding the bowl in the process of dipping it in a pot of glaze are carbonized as they are, adding to a natural effect of scraped off. There are a number of fine cracks created in the process of burning the glaze all over the surface of the bowl, to which, by using a sharp stick, a convexo-concave pattern is added. As a whole, it becomes a genuinely well-balanced design. Raku also experimented with new techniques such as paddle-forming with length of woods. Using this technique, he developed a new and powerfully sculptural approach to making.