Teapot: Shinrin-yoku
Teapot: Shinrin-yoku
About
Wheel-thrown stoneware, built in Singapore from Australian stoneware clay. Carried to Japan to be woodfired at a pottery studio in the Tokoname forest, October 2025, then carried home again.
A teapot, suited to Western and English-style tea.
14 × 22 cm · Holds 1035 ml (~35 oz)
The Making
Built with a one-hand push: thrown as a cylinder first, scored with a fork, then stretched from the inside using only the left hand, with no support from the outside to hold it steady. It's a harder way to throw, but it leaves a softer, less mechanical shape.
This is the larger of the two teapots from this trip. It's already proven itself at several tea ceremonies at home.
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.