Editor’s Miscellany: Porcelain Poetry

January 16, 2014

By Kyle Hoepner

Every now and again in life, you will come across something so exquisite, or so intricate, so time-intensive, or something so sheerly singular, that it leaves you speechless. It may be a work of nature: Angel Falls in South America, an apocalyptic thunderstorm, a composite image of the Orion Nebula, a photomicrograph of a slice of serpentinite stone. Or it may be something manmade, like the seemingly chaotic cityscape of Kuala Lumpur or the ceiling of the Harmandir Sahib (“Golden Temple”) in Amritsar, India.

Angel Falls, Venezuela. Photo from tourists360.com.

Photomicrograph of a thin section of serpentinite rock. Photo by Emily Pope/Stanford University.

Ceiling and chandelier at the Golden Temple in Amritsar.
Photo from manumint-[BUSY]’s photostream on flickr.com

So it was with me when I first laid eyes on the porcelain creations of Hitomi Hosono.

Hitomi Hosono: Large Feather Leaves Bowl (2013).
Photo © The Trustees of the British Museum, from britishmuseum.org

The same piece from above, looking into the interior.
Photo © The Trustees of the British Museum, from britishmuseum.org

A social media friend, Beatrice Waanders (who contributes in her own way to the greater beauty of the universe through her company, The Soft World), turned me on to Hosono’s work via a Facebook post. Originally a student of Kutani pottery in Japan, Hosono now lives and practices her exacting craft in London. I really don’t need to say much more; just take a look at her pieces and experience the innate joy of a thing done ravishingly well.