Video of Yuta Segawa throwing miniature vessels.
Culture
Miniature ceramic vases
There aren’t many artists who chose to specialize in miniature ceramics… however, Yuta Segawa isn’t like most artists. As anyone who has tried their hand at ceramics knows, hand-throwing perfectly formed vases on a pottery wheel is quite hard. However, producing miniature vessels takes the art form to an entirely differently level.
The Japanese ceramicist learned to throw ceramics while living in both Japan and China; but he developed skills for miniature pottery while living in London. Based in London, the artist pays the same amount of attention to a pint-sized vessel that he would to a “normal-sized” piece.
Each vase is thrown by hand and features perfectly-formed feet and long necks. The proportions are absolutely perfect!
Video courtesy of: Vimeo
In addition to his aptitude on the pottery wheel, Segawa is extremely talented with colors and glazes. Over the past several years, the ceramist has developed over five hundred unique glazes in virtually every color and tone. The founder of SGW Lab works with various clays such as terra-cotta, stoneware, and porcelain. He also experiments with texture and new ways of throwing.
Of his miniature series, Segawa says, “Miniature pottery relates to the issue of the relationship between artists’ bodies and their works. It is a challenge to test the limits of what a human body can make on such a small scale.”
As of this summer, Yuta had a collection of over one thousand tiny vessels in a wide array of colors. For display purposes, Yuta arranges the vessels in either long, organized rows… or in a scattered formation that shifts seamlessly between warm and cool tones.