Ash-glazed Hand-carved Chawan

This tea bowl was hand-formed and hand-carved from our house high-iron stoneware, coated in our house ash glaze, and then fired to Cone 10 in reduction in our Blaauw kiln. I am running the risk of making this the predominant way that I make tea bowls given that I find the process so enjoyable. It is much slower than throwing on the wheel. And I think that it makes it even harder than usual to resist the temptation to over think and over work your pieces. But it’s a very peaceful way to make a tea bowl, where every single moment of the making process you can be asking yourself: “how will someone feel when they’re using this?” And that’s a good question to be asking yourself.