Registry record
Lava Sake Cup
Thrown, glazed, and fired by Matiass Preiss in the studio in Iceland.
Available — €40
A small wheel-thrown sake cup in black stoneware under a glossy, cratered brown-black glaze that has run to beads and drips of scarlet just above the bare foot.
- Type
- Sake cup
- Dimensions
- H 4 cm · Ø 7.5 cm
- Clay body
- Black stoneware
- Glaze
- Cratered brown-black glaze with scarlet run
From the studio
A small cup, thrown on the wheel in black stoneware. The wall is straight, a little wider at the rim than the foot, thin at the lip. The glaze is glossy, dark brown-black, its whole surface broken by burst bubbles and craters, so that light sits on it in points, not in a sheet. At the hem it has run into beads and drips of bright scarlet, stopped just above the foot. Below them the black clay is bare; the inside is glossy brown.
Close to, the surface reads as a boil arrested: craters large and small, each the frozen rim of a bubble. A glaze of this kind boils in the kiln: gas rises through the melt as bubbles, which burst and freeze at the surface as the kiln cools. Where such a glaze runs it thins at the hem and gathers in beads. Here the brown-black gives way to scarlet, which collects into a rounded drop, glossy against the matt black clay beneath it.
Turned over, the cup shows its underside: bare black clay, dry and dark against the gloss of the glazed wall. The foot is trimmed on the wheel, a flat ring with a recessed centre, and the tool’s fine circling lines are still in the clay. At the edge of the recess a small square stamp is pressed into the foot. From below, at one side, the lower edge of the glaze can be seen against the black, the scarlet stopped short of the foot.
Matiass Preiss is a third-generation ceramic artist. His father, Tenis Preiss, made Latvian ceramics in Dunte and was a key figure in Latvian ceramics in the early 2000s. Where the grandfather, Arnis, pursued mineral fire, Tenis pursued use: cups, teapots, vessels for the hand. “A cup can look simple, but the handle reveals everything.” Matiass was taught by both men in proximity, watching, trying, failing, learning to look again. He has a long affinity for Japanese forms, the tea bowl and the yunomi.
A sake cup has no handle; it is a vessel for the hand. The cup was thrown, glazed and fired by Matiass Preiss in his studio in Iceland, and nothing here is finished: the glaze softens where a thumb rests and the foot wears to the shelf it stands on. Most pieces are unique and some belong to a small run; numbered pieces are entered in the studio registry.
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