Vase: Shinrin-yoku
Vase: Shinrin-yoku
About
Wheel-thrown stoneware, built in Singapore from Australian stoneware clay. Woodfired at a pottery studio in the Tokoname forest, Japan, October 2025.
A Greek amphora form.
16 × 18 cm (6.3 × 7.1 in)
The Making
This piece traveled twice: thrown and bisque-fired in Singapore, carried to Japan to be woodfired, then carried home again. Bisqueware is fragile and unforgiving in transit, and this one made the trip intact.
One side faced the fire directly and turned warm and deep in color. The other side, turned away from the flame, stayed cool. A different colored slip was applied to the surface before texturing, which is part of why the two sides read so differently.
It has a little sister: a second amphora with the same Singapore-to-Japan-and-back journey, sold to a collector at Clayfest 2026.
The Firing
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Made during three weeks at a pottery studio in the Tokoname forest, Japan, a city built on pottery, threaded by a footpath paved with broken ceramic shards and a centuries-old climbing kiln leaning into the hillside. This was my first wood firing, and the studio itself had a small, family feel, like living in a village.
The kiln was an anagama: a single-chamber, tunnel-shaped wood kiln, one of the oldest kiln types in Japan, brought over from Korea around the 5th century. This one had only a front stoke hole, no side stoking. The approach here, taught by kiln master Peter Seabridge, isn't about speed. It's about pacing: watching the thermometer, watching the chimney through a mirror in the window, and judging when to feed it again.
I worked two shifts, both mornings, about 10 hours each. In the first, the temperature climbed from 260°C to 1020°C. In the second, it rose from 1214°C to 1255°C, crossing the 1250°C mark. The kiln peaked at 1260°C. There was no reduction cooling at the end, just a long climb up and back down.
No glaze was applied to any piece. Everything you see on the surface is ash, clay body, and slip.