YOKEI MIZUNO Nanban Hidasuki Mogake Seaweed Tokoname Kyusu Teapot YK09 水野陽景藻掛

YOKEI MIZUNO Nanban Hidasuki Mogake Seaweed Teapot 

Nanban: Textured
Hidasuki: Fire line by rice straw 
Mogake: Seaweed pattern

Thin body, light in weight, very detailed  work.
Pretty and sophisticated shape .

Beautiful pattern is from Rice Straw and Seaweed.
Rice Straw (Hidasuki Fire lines) makes bold orange lines. 
Seaweed (Mogake) makes thin brown pattern and green seaweed glazing.

Clay is Yokei's original - Blend of Tokoname mountain clay, Tokoname rice field clay and Shigaraki clay. Tokoname rice field clay contains iron and make the body color tasteful. 

Yokei fired the pot three times. Fired with reduced oxygen atmosphere (reduction firing) body becomes grayish with orange marble like seen in the photo.

Straw orange and Seaweed brown and green are very beautiful on gray-orange-marble body.  Everything is harmonized.

For seaweed, delicate spring seaweed are used. Yokei picked them in the sea and aged a few years to make ideal color of seaweed lines on teapots.

To make the seaweed art "right", salinity in the seaweed is the one of the keys. After picking up the seaweed, it is important to wash and dry seaweed to control salinity. For example, too much salt in seaweed, it damages teapot body. Short of salt doesn't make pattern.

About Mogake(seaweed) process
https://shihateacomfort.com/japanese-teapot-with-seaweed-pattern-soil-and-oceans-beauty

Surface of the body is "textured" - it look so natural and feels of clay is simple. This texture is called "Nanban" in Japanese. Master Yokei's very high technique  can make this texture. He only used right hand (no support of left hand) to form the shape. 

Perfect fit of the lid to the body. You feel "perfect fitting" every time you place the lid.

Good to brew Green tea, Woolong tea, White Tea, Black tea, any kind of tea! 

Artist of the teapot is Yokei Mizuno, born in 1956, great teapot artist in Tokoname, Japan. Elegance and simplicity coexist in his works. 

Again, teapot is very thin and light in weight -as if there is only air in the box, when you received it. (110g)

Artist :  Yokei Mizuno 
Capacity : Approx. 220ml 
Box : Wood Box