Brown Japanese Tableware

Brown is the colour of the clay itself. Where other colours are made with glaze, most browns come from putting nothing on at all.

Pottery and woodwork sit together here. Some pieces are clay, cut stroke by stroke until the surface reads like tree rings. Others are actually turned from wood. Side by side in a photograph, it is not always obvious which is which.

Fired unglazed at high heat, a piece is yakishime. Wood ash that falls in the kiln and melts on the surface is shizen-yu; ash applied deliberately as a glaze is haiyu. Straw wrapped around a piece to leave scarlet lines is hidasuki, and seaweed wrapped the same way is mogake.