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Tamba-yaki is a style of high-fired,
unglazed pottery originating more than 800 years ago in a remote and
mountainous region west of Kyoto in Hyogo prefecture. During the
Edo era (1600-1868), Tamba tea bowls were used extensively by
tea ceremony practitioners who appreciated their simple, austere
beauty. Because Tamba-yaki is unadorned and free of decorative
elements, its beauty derives solely from the quality of the clay, also
known as its "flavor", and how kiln dynamics are rendered upon it.
This set of plates by Nagai Ken is formed and fired in the Tamba
tradition. The intense heat inside the
noborigama
climbing kiln where it was fired produces warm gradations of rust red to dark brown and
small pebbles where feldspar crystals in the clay burst through. Swirling embers of red pine fuse with the surface of the
plates and
produce a natural glaze, or shizen-yu, which is rough yet pleasing to the
touch.

See Nagai Ken's Osaka Exhibition
for more works from his 2010 collection.
special care instructions
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