The Beauty of the Broken...

...and of the rough and unfinished: top shot of a couple of Meir's crustier teapots- a thick coating of ash from the anagama,but not enough heat at the critical time to melt it; below- someone in the studio grabbed a dry unfired bowl by the rim before I could warn them [it happens occasionally,much to the embarrassment of the party concerned]. The teapots are heading for a refire in Sunday's glaze kiln,the bits of bowl for the recycling bin, but both have an unfinished,transient or incomplete aspect of beauty for me, quite distinct from the beauty of the complete, the smooth, the whole. I suppose this is akin the the Japanese concept of wabi and sabi [like most western folk,I can't tell the two apart] but they don't have the monopoly on this aesthetic: there are many Jewish teachings about the beauty of a broken and humble spirit/heart,not to mention teachings from the Kabbalah about broken vessels...and then there's Grayson Perry...