Masanori Yamamoto: Lift It or Set It Down

Masanori Yamamoto pottery splits along a line that most buying guides skip: some of it is built to be picked up, and some of it is built to stay put. Sorting a maker's work that way before you order saves you from owning three things that all want to be held, and nothing that will hold still under a knife.

A rim is what keeps a plate on the table

The white plate above measures 3.6cm at its highest point, and nearly all of that belongs to the rim. A rim does two jobs at once. It stops a sauce before the edge, and it leaves a band of glazed surface with nothing on it, which is what makes a modest portion look composed instead of sparse.

It also settles how the piece is handled. With a raised edge you take the plate from outside the food, thumb on the rim, so your hand never crosses what you are serving. That is why a rim plate stays on the table through a meal while a flat one gets moved around.

Ears turn a bowl into something you can carry hot

The green bowl above is 6.5cm deep and carries an ear on each side. Those ears are the entire argument for it. A vessel of that depth filled with hot soup is too warm to grip by the wall and too awkward to balance from underneath with one hand, so most bowls of this size travel to the table on a tray.

Two ears remove that step. You lift it level, at arm's length, with no cloth, and set it down where it is going to be eaten. The clay at the ear is thin and sits away from the liquid, so the glazed surface there stays cool while the middle of the bowl is still steaming.

7.6cm is a mug you eat from

The mug above stands 7.6cm, and its proportions explain what it is for. A wall of that height with a handle attached keeps the contents hot long enough to be eaten with a spoon rather than drunk down in one go, and the handle keeps your fingers off a wall that runs warmer than a coffee vessel ever does.

Look inside as well. The glazed interior runs smooth to the bottom with no ridge where the wall meets the base, so a spoon does not catch on the way down and nothing collects in a corner you cannot reach with a sponge.

Reading the rest of the range by height

Once you have the rule, the numbers sort themselves. Plates at 1.2cm, 2.6cm and 4cm stay down: the lowest suits a single item, the middle suits something dry, the tallest takes anything with juice in it. Bowls at 4.5cm and 6.2cm are meant for the hand.

Tall and narrow shapes go back on the table. A vase at 7.3cm and a straight-sided mug at 9.3cm are steadied rather than gripped, so they belong where they will not be reached across. A flared mug at 8cm falls between the two, opening enough at the rim to let a whole hand around it.

Why a ceramic body suits all of this

The work is pottery rather than porcelain, made in Shiga. A ceramic body moves heat slowly, which is exactly what the eared bowl and the soup mug depend on: the food stays hot while the outside of the vessel remains touchable long enough to carry.

The same body is heavier for its size than a thin white one would be, and that weight is the reason the low plates stay where you put them when a knife works across the surface. Weight is a nuisance in something you lift all day and a virtue in something you never lift at all.

Where to start

For a piece you will pick up daily, the white pouring bowl is the one to begin with; a pouring lip is the clearest sign of a vessel designed to leave the table. If you want something that holds its own beside it, the rope-pattern rim plate puts its interest at the edge, where food will never cover it. The plain ceramic plate is the one to buy in a pair. The Masanori Yamamoto collection keeps them together.