Reading the cracked foot out loud

The foot ring is where potters negotiated shelf contact, trimming tools, and oxidation memory. It is also where couriers negotiate gravity and bubble wrap. When a class sees a hairline at the toe, the loudest story wins unless we slow the room: map the crack plane, check for glaze continuity across it, ask when the piece last traveled. Silence is better than a confident wrong century.

Typology needs the base

Typology diagrams drawn only from the shoulder up train eyes in the wrong direction. We assign sketches that include the foot at the same scale as the lip, even when the catalog crop refuses to.

Cross-check with reduction stories

Oxidation halos at the foot can disagree with a shoulder’s reduction romance; that disagreement is data, not embarrassment. Pair this exercise with Longquan celadon readings where crackle and foot color carry different chapters of the same firing.