Ice-Crackle Pair Set of 4 — Bubble & Jellyfish

Crazing is the fine web of cracks that appears when a glaze and the clay beneath it shrink at different rates. Kawai Taichi raises it on purpose, and aims it at a pattern like cracked ice.

Bubble is a deep blue taken from air rising through water; Jellyfish is a greyed, pale lilac. A mug and a rice bowl in each — two settings. Side by side they hardly look like the same glaze.

What is in the set (4 pieces)

• Ice-Crackle Mug, Bubble Blue — approx. 11.5 × 8.7 × 9.3cm
• Ice-Crackle Rice Bowl, Medium, Bubble Blue — approx. 12cm diameter × 6.3cm high
• Ice-Crackle Mug, Jellyfish Lilac — approx. 11.5 × 8.7 × 8.4cm
• Ice-Crackle Rice Bowl, Medium, Jellyfish Lilac — approx. 12cm diameter × 6.3cm high

Two mugs and two rice bowls make a table for two as they are. The two colours also settle the question of whose is whose.

About the maker

Kameoka, Kyoto | Kawai Taichi, Tobo Hakuhyo

Kawai Taichi works in Kameoka, Kyoto, aiming at pieces that are easy to use and good to look at. The unusual glaze at the centre of the work is hyoretsu kannyu — ice-crackle — and it is what gives a surface the look of cracked ice.

The pattern the clay and the glaze make together comes out differently on every piece, and what matters, Kawai says, is how the work holds up inside daily life. The forms stay simple while the glaze carries the texture, so there is something new to find each time a piece is picked up. Cold and warm at once: that is the signature.

Crazing keeps developing as the piece is used, and the pattern changes with it.

See everything by Kawai Taichi