Lee Love on tue 1 feb 05
These were a mainstay item made in Mashiko during the "Crockery"
period. You can find a half dozen of these in any Mashiko antique (aka
junk) store. They are often glazed with Kaki (think of Kaki as
"Japanese Albany Slip".) Kaki was used to seal the insides of pots
that would hold liquid, just in case the clay was underfired.
Maybe these or things like these (heated rocks or bricks)
are common in all places without central heating. Central heating is
not common in Japanese homes, even today.
The oldest ones are plugged with a cork. These are the best
because it is easy to replace a cork. They often look like (and are
about the same size) as a pug of clay that is flatten on the bottom.
Newer ones have a screw on top (that is usually missing) and some of the
newest ones have a flatten, truncated oval shape. The very newest
ones, that you can currently buy at the drugstore or hardware, are just
like the oval ceramic footwarmers, but are made of plastic.
When our cats adopted us, the first winter, Jean filled liter
pop bottles, (actually, our liter bottles came with tea in them), with
hot water for the kittens. This looked like such a good idea, that I
started heating two up in a galvanized bucket on the woodstove and use
them as footrests when I am working at the wheel. Jean takes a liter
bottle to bed for her chronically cold feet.
I'll ask Jean to find the ceramic foot warmer we have (she
showed me it yesterday, when we were cleaning the studio.) It is the
pug shape of the old ones, but is missing its screw on top. I'll put
a photo up later.
--
in Mashiko, Japan http://mashiko.org
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http://public.fotki.com/togeika/ Photos!
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