The beautiful ornamental tea bowl is finely handcrafted by artist Anette Lindenberg using kurinuki, the traditional Japanese technique of carving from a single block of clay. The tea bowl is made from a black clay, covered in Lindenberg’s black yakisugi glaze that encourages the velvety misting of tiny silver droplets to follow the patination of the dark glaze, off-set by the overglaze of a constellation of silver droplets. The mistings of fine silver droplets interspersed across the surface of the tea bowl are revealed when lit, illuminating the tea bowl. The fine silver droplets are reminiscent of frosted condensation and water trails from raindrops on windows, capturing a quiet fleeting transience and temporal in-betweenness. The shine emphasises the crevices and kurinuki cuts, juxtaposed against the thin bowl with asymmetric fuller bellied form which plays into a sense of conviviality as it fits into cupped palms, even as the coarse texture of the clay body and cut edges reveal a grittiness in the raw material.
The piece elegantly treads a balance between delicate softness and jagged roughness, reflecting the artist’s interest in natural geomorphic forms and influence from the Japanese aesthetic theory of wabi-sabi – an appreciation for beauty in imperfection. This combination results in a mesmerising rawness and warmth that is simultaneously intimate and subliminal. The unglazed bottom exhibits the original rough clay body, finished with the neat maker’s mark.
