Bellied vessel, snow-dip glaze

A low, round-shouldered vessel, the kind of generous, slightly squat shape that looks like it's been sitting on a farmhouse dresser for a hundred years. The clay is a speckled oatmeal stoneware, left raw and bare around the foot so you can see and feel exactly what it's made of.

Over the top half it's dipped in a creamy white glaze that breaks and drips as it meets the speckled clay, a soft, uneven waterline where the two meet, like snow half-melted over bare winter ground. No two dips ever fall the same, which is the point of dipping by hand.

It came out of a winter firing, one of the pieces I opened the kiln for and actually held my breath over. Wide enough for a loose armful of branches, handsome enough empty.

Wheel-thrown at the studio in Woburn.