Our small range of curated single-flower handmade ceramic vases are made by the talented artisans at Koito Pottery, near Takayama City in the Gifu Prefecture.
Koito-yaki (Koito pottery) uses two types of clays as its “clay body”. It uses mainly the local clay dug from a mountain in Hida Furukawa, a town about 20km north of Takayama City (Gifu), and additionally Gairome clay (a type of kaolin) from Seto City (Aichi, bordered by Gifu) to increase refractoriness of the clay body.
Koito pottery is basically glazed with “Irabo glaze”, which is a traditional, brown glaze and known for its somewhat coarse texture. Recently, by adding some pigments into the Irabo glaze, “Ao-Irabo glaze” (‘ao’ means ‘blue’ ) has been newly developed and become the most popular glaze color among Koito pottery. Ao-Irabo glaze produces a tasteful, deep cobalt blue color—a special color which can be seen only in Koito pottery.
Today, Irabo glaze has three colors: blue, brown and Uguisu (close to olive-green). These colors are created by varying mixing ratio of pigments contained in the glaze.
Please note the size of the vase, when ordering. Comes gift-boxed.
