We're delighted to present a walk-through of our latest exhibition of teabowls by 10 respected makers of the form: Japanese potters - Ken Matsuzaki, Ryotaro Kato, Shinsaku Hamada, Kazuya Furutani, Koichiro Isezaki, Masaaki Shibata and Tomoo Hamada: British potters - Lisa Hammond and Nic Collins and American potter, Randy Johnston.
Making a chawan – the bowl used for the preparing and serving of tea in chadō, the ‘Way of Tea’ – is one of the greatest challenges a potter can face. To be suitable for the tea ceremony, potters must work their chawan forms to demanding specifications: the bowl should be light enough to handle with ease, yet heavy enough to have presence in the hand; too thin, and the tea will lose its heat too quickly; too thick, and the bowl will feel clumsy and unwieldy, the heat failing to penetrate to the hand as it is clasped.
