"I have worn one ring for eleven years. I no longer remember which finger is mine without it."
Photographed in her studio, above the hills of Ōhara
A wet Tuesday, March MMXXVI
Rain on the cypress. 11°C.
Yuki is barefoot when she opens the studio door. There is a small dog at her heels, no name, and a kettle whistling somewhere out of sight. She has just come from the kiln — there is grey clay still in the creases of her hands — and the gold ring on her right hand has clay on it too, which she does not bother to wipe off. We sit on the floor.
A bowl, half-thrown, on the wheel
"The gold has changed; my hand has changed; we are now of the same age."
—Yuki Mori
She makes us tea. The bowl she pours it into is one of hers — small, slightly off-axis, with a glaze that catches the grey sky outside and holds it. We talk about her father, who taught her, and about the kiln, which she had to rebuild in twenty-twenty after a typhoon took the roof. She says the storm "was a friend, in the end." She does not elaborate.
The ring, eleven years on
The conversation
Q.
When did you first put on the ring?
YU.
A January, eleven years ago. I had finished a difficult winter and I wanted something that was mine — not a souvenir of the difficulty, but a marker of having walked through it. The ring was the marker.
Q.
Where do you wear it?
YU.
Everywhere. The kiln, the bath, on long walks. I do not take it off.
Q.
You make objects for a living. What does it mean to wear one made by another hand?
YU.
It means I trust the other hand. I can feel where the maker stopped. That is a very intimate thing to be in conversation with, every morning, on a finger.
That day —Yuki had with her
Wearing
Indigo cotton smock, her father's
Drinking
Hojicha, very strong
Reading
Tanizaki, again — In Praise of Shadows
Playing
Bach, the cello suites, on a small speaker
On the bench
Three bowls, drying. A pair of pliers. A pencil.
"Choose one thing. Wear it for a year before you choose anything else."
When we leave, the rain has slowed. She walks us to the gate. The ring catches the last grey of the afternoon — almost nothing, almost a piece of the weather. Then it is gone, into her pocket, and so are we.
— In conversation with Yuki Mori, Kyoto, Japan.
She wears
Molten claw ring
Other features
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Aurélien Cassen
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Léonor de Sá
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Hana Achebe
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