Jui Hwa LIN
Mother Glaze Tea Set
wood-fired ceramics
2024
The kiln is akin to Mother Earth, nurturing like the planet itself. Through the processes of expansion, melting, cooling, and contraction, she gives birth to diverse minerals and stones. Similarly, Jui Hwa Lin use natural scrap wood, employing arched kiln craftsmanship and precise wood-firing techniques to create what I call "future ceramics."
Natural clay and minerals are pounded, soaked, and kneaded before being shaped using the most primitive hand-pinching methods. The resulting pieces exhibit reddish-brown hues resembling amber glazes, with flowing ivory-white textures on the fire-exposed surfaces, frozen like eternal rivers. Under the high heat of wood-firing, the typical ash deposits and fire marks sought after by most wood-firing practitioners are absent, leaving behind a jade-like, primal mineral texture.
The "Mother Glaze Tea Bowl Set" pays homage to the ancient tradition of tea drinking, where tea was shared in large bowls. It integrates the modern tea ceremony steps of warming the bowl, placing tea leaves, pouring water, and serving tea. This deliberate and serene process allows the tea leaves to unfurl gracefully in the vessel, achieving harmony between the ceramics and the tea infusion.
Breaking conventional kiln-firing concepts, I use temperature and wood-firing to reveal new expressions in clay and minerals, resulting in what I term transformative ceramics: the origin of glaze itself, the "mother glaze." This innovation opens a new chapter in the beauty of wood-fired ceramics and the history of human pottery.