Colored-Stone Inlay Incense Box with Silver Application

Kishi Eiko

ca. 2008

Stoneware (Shigaraki clay) with colored clay chamotte, slip painting and silver application

Minneapolis Institute of Art

A rectangular stoneware incense box with a lid and a handle-like structure on top. The box is decorated with colored stone inlay and silver application. Like many Japanese women ceramists, Kishi Eiko entered the male-dominated world of ceramic production through art school, rather than a traditional apprenticeship. She attended the Ceramic Research Center in Ashiya before establishing her own studio in her native city of Kyoto. Perhaps because she has no affiliation with any of Japan’s longstanding pottery traditions, she has been free to develop her own unique style. She hand-builds her strong geometric forms and then scores the surface with radiating patterns of fine lines. Afterward, she creates thousands of tiny holes, which she fills with small dabs of colored slip. Gallery G22