Shino

Tōkaiseki is a technique of Matsuzaki’s own invention, these sculptural works are not thrown but hewn, carved and torn from hollowed blocks of clay on a potter’s wheel using a variety of tools – from knives and wooden scrapers to wire, fingers, thumbs and even fistfuls of clay itself. Developed over many years, these forms now represent a distillation of Matsuzaki’s enigmatic, tour-de-force approach to his medium.

Shino glazes were first developed in Japan during the mid-1500s. They are distinguished by their large feldspar content, minerals that lower the melting point of the glaze mixture and help bond its distinct elements. They generally range from milky whites and pinks to deep reds, oranges and greys depending on their makeup, the clay body they are applied to and and firing and can vary hugely in appearance from potter to potter.

Sebastian Blackie explains more about Matsuzaki's shino glazes here:

Shino is a glaze made almost entirely from the feldspar family of minerals. When they melt they form a liquid of high viscosity that continues to move with great sluggishness at much higher temperatures. Feldspars that are alkaline and low in silica typically produce a thick white glaze breaking to pink or red in the presence of iron oxide. Matsuzaki brilliantly combines layers of different feldspars which interact in firing, forming eutectics (a mix of two materials that melt at a lower temperature than either alone) at their interface, causing the materials to slide over one another to produce glaze effects of great drama and movement. White Shinos on iron-bearing clay bodies will slowly darken as they absorb the oxide. This glaze quality is rarely seen outside Japan. It is the result of seven day-long firings at relatively low stoneware temperatures; a legacy of the inefficient (in Western terms) Anagama kilns in which Shino glazes were first fired. This quality is the product of long firings but also the embodiment of a ritual where the potter is physically and emotionally stretched in the process of giving some permanence to his work.

Accompanied by a signed, made to measure box.

From Japan