The great 20th-century Japanese potter Kanjiro Kawai (1890-1966) marveled at items that were small and most people overlooked: a stone, a leaf, a box of matches. He would toss them over and over again in his hands.
"A box of fire! I marvel at the match," he once said. "We can put fire in a box and put it in our pockets -- what a wonderful thing!"
In the world of Japanese pottery many traditional items are indeed small: kogo (incense boxes) or hashioki (chopstick rests), for instance. Most potters make these small sakuhin(works), yet most don't deviate outside the standard potter's path when it comes to form and function.