Tea Cup, Porcelain & Stoneware

Built from two clays at once, layered in alternating bands before the block is cut and shaped — stoneware and porcelain stacked together rather than used separately. Held up to a window, light passes through the porcelain rings and stops at the stoneware ones, so the striping reads twice: once in colour, once in light.

This is an experimental piece. Stoneware and porcelain shrink at different rates during drying and firing, and combining them at all is difficult — doing it at a wall thickness of about 1 mm, where there's almost no material to absorb that stress, pushes the technique close to its limit. Most attempts at this crack before they make it out of the kiln. 

Only a small number exist. Each comes from its own block, so the banding shifts slightly from cup to cup — close enough to belong together, no two identical.

Details

• Nerikomi, hand-built
• Stoneware and porcelain, layered, fired translucent in parts
• Height approx. 8.8 cm, 6 cm wide, capacity approx. 170 ml
• Transparently glazed interior
  
• Made in my studio near Bad Tölz, Bavaria

Hand wash only — walls are extremely thin.