Jar

Born and raised in Tokoname, Koie Ryo_ji has fashioned clay his entire life--first as a factory worker and then as an artist. As a young man, he lost two of his fingers in a factory accident where he worked making industrial clay pipe. He gouges the surfaces of his pots, he says, because psychologically he is still hunting for his missing fingers. Koie created this jar using the coil method during an extended visit to the Saint John's Pottery in Collegeville, Minnesota. As he pinched the coils together with his fingers, he left the marks in the clay to give the jar its distinctive texture.