finish_glaze_shino

Shino glaze

glaze · matte · shino, 志野, Mino shino

A thick, opaque, mostly-feldspar glaze fired to stoneware temperatures in reduction. Reads as creamy white with orange / red 'fire color' where the body shows through and where carbon trapping happens. The signature glaze of Mino-ware tea bowls, Japanese 16th-century onward. Crawls and pinholes are part of the character.

Glaze chemistry roughly 80% feldspar / 20% kaolin / minimal silica or flux additions — the simplest glaze recipe in the Japanese tradition. Fired to cone 9–11 (~1280–1300 °C) in heavy reduction. Carbon trapping (incomplete combustion of the reduction atmosphere produces free carbon that the glaze captures) gives the characteristic gray streaks and the 'hi-iro' fire-color flashing on the body. Modern American shino (Malcolm Davis, c. 1980s) added soda ash for more pronounced carbon trapping. Surface character: thick, slightly crawled, often pinholed — defects in industrial pottery, signatures in tea-ceremony work.

character — creamy white with orange fire-flashing, thick crawled surface, tea-ceremony register.

Finish properties

  • levelmatte
  • subcategoryhigh-feldspar low-flux glaze
  • applies toceramic
Pairs with materials

Second life

reversibilityzero — fired ceramic glaze cannot be unfired; the glassy layer is permanent. Damaged or chipped glaze can be re-glazed and re-fired with chemistry-compatibility planning.
blocks substrate recyclingno
renewabilitymoderate — re-glazing and re-firing is a studio-renewability path for damaged ceramic; the constraint is the original-firing temperature (the re-glaze must fire below the original).

Robin Hopper *The Ceramic Spectrum* (Krause, 2nd ed.); Daniel Rhodes *Clay and Glazes for the Potter*.