Yohen Crystal Glaze
During my 5 year apprenticeship in Japan, my assignment was to develop new glazes, mainly TENMOKU glazes, in a brown-black color with an iridescent quality. At that time, I completed over 10,000 test pieces. The fifth year of my apprenticeship, I discovered the iridescent glaze on a black background which was my original contribution to the art of YOHEN TENMOKU. Over the last few years, I have experimented to discover new glazes which combine crystallization with iridescence. I have researched crystal glaze techniques in the United States, Europe, Japan and China. In the long history of crystal glazes, I could find no iridescent crystal glaze. This fueled my ten-year long passion and intent to create an iridescent crystal glaze glaze which has never been made anywhere, at anytime in history. I started testing, using data from my apprentice years. Over and over again, I experimented, completing over 2000 test samples in the last few years. Last year, the newest glaze came out of my kiln. It was the most complicated glaze formula and firing process that I have ever done. I call that newest glaze YOHEN CRYSTAL GLAZE. YOHEN means "stars glistening in a night sky". To make a new glaze is my lifelong passion.

Yohen Tenmoku Glaze
The original YOHEN TENMOKU glaze was developed in China during the Sung Dynasty (940-1290 A.D.). Today, the only four YOHEN TENMOKU tea bowls known to exist are in temples and museums in Japan, where they were imported during the height of the tea ceremony's popularity (1500-1600). They are regarded as National Treasures. YOHEN literally means "stars glistening in a night sky" and TENMOKU, although known widely here as a type of high fire black glaze, also signifies a certain shape of ceremonial tea bowl. These glazes not only have a long and mysterious history, but carry deep meaning in the art and philosophy of China as well as in Japan. To tea masters and Zen Priests, the YOHEN TENMOKU tea bowl represents the universe, an ever-changing and limitless cosmos, a creative void, as boundless and dynamic as it exists in our own spirits.
I have spent the last ten years experimenting with these and other traditional Chinese glazing techniques which figure prominently in classical Japanese pottery. In the process, I have become devoted to researching and recreating the YOHEN TENMOKU glaze, to exploring its harmony with new clay bodies and forms and to combining it with traditional as well as modern and western shapes, to further develop its unique potential as a form of cultural and spiritual communication.

Hideaki Miyamura