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With a history of more than 1300 years, Mino-yaki is a type of pottery and porcelain from the Tono region in Gifu Prefecture. By combining the traditional technique of kintsugi, which is the art of repairing broken ceramic ware with a glue lacquer, with the modern ingenuity and skill that sustained the rapid economic growth of post-war Japan, three identically shaped but different-coloured plates have been cut and refitted to form these unique designs. The sintered plates are meticulously cut with a water jet, then sandblasted for rejoining, and the pieces are finally glued together again with lacquer. Whereas traditional kintsugi usually winds gold leaf on top of the lacquer, these pieces have just a black lacquer finish. This has created a whole new appearance from the conventional method of applying a separate glaze to the finished product.
