Sake bottle (tokkuri) or flower vase. This piece wears no glazing, & has dry & coarse surface from Yakishime firing technique. The unpretentious look of this piece reflects the time-honoured Japanese minimalist aesthetics. Made in Mashiko, Japan. One of a kind studio piece made by Haga Ryuichi. Fired at high temperature in the artist's Anagama kiln. Dimension: Height 13.0 x Body width 8.5 cm / 5.2 x 3.4 inches About the artist Haga Ryuichi is a potter who lives in the ceramics town of Mashiko in Japan. Digging local soil & minerals for the clay bodies & glazes has become a notable trend in Japanese studio ceramics (in the contemporary context), which Haga is an important part of. Haga hardly uses prepared clay or glaze in order to achieve a result he wants. He has more focus on the connection with the local land & nature, & its transformation into ceramic ware. Having finished his master's degree in sculpture at Musashino Art College in Tokyo, Haga's artistic journey made an unexpected turn toward the very Japanese sense of ceramics. Drawing on 16th century Momoyama tea ware, Haga dives deeper into the time-honored aesthetics to reinterpret it with the raw materials that he found & prepared. The result is that the artist's unapologetic experimentalism seeps out from beneath the seemingly typical Japanese pottery ware, sometimes even in a totally abstract form. Haga' s works have been shown at many exhibitions in Japan & overseas, notably at Mashiko Museum of Ceramic Art & Kaikaikiki gallery in Tokyo. Hand Thrown Yakishime Tokkuri Sake Bottle Japanese Studio Pottery