Bourry Box Vase #26120

Fired directly beneath the Bourry Box of the Sasukenei Kiln in Weimar, this vase spent its firing at the fiercest point in the chamber. In a Bourry Box, logs burn on a raised grate so that heat and flame are driven downward onto the vessels below. It is a punishing position, where wood ash settles and melts into the clay and falling debris such as nails and splinters presses its own marks into the surface.

During the firing, burning logs collapsed into the vase itself. It buckled under the impact and came close to shattering, yet it held, warped as if it had danced in the flames. The crack running down one side records that moment. The opposite side is layered with ash and clay fused together. Where the soda porcelain slip met the ash, the reaction bloomed into a striking grey-silver sheen, an effect no potter could plan and one given entirely by the fire.

A second, separate crack runs through the base, and it is this one that lets water pass. For flowers we recommend a slim metal cylinder set inside the vessel, which keeps the piece dry and lets the arrangement stand freely. Should you prefer it sealed, we can close the base with epoxy resin on request. No firing ever places a piece exactly here, and nothing will fall the same way again. Its form, surface, and character belong to a single moment in the kiln that can never be repeated.

Height: 25 cm · Width: 17 cm