Hello everyone, how are you all doing? I thought it was chilly today, and sure enough, it was snowing here in Bizen. It had been quite warm recently, so I thought spring was just around the corner, but it seems like winter is making a final push. For some reason, when the air is cold, it feels as if the oxygen is tightly condensed. It makes me feel as if I need to pull myself together. I tried to take pictures of the snow, but I just couldn't capture it well. The landscape of white, which felt almost overwhelming in person, looks somehow flat in photos. Perhaps it is because a single snowy landscape is composed of the continuous motion of tiny ice crystals, so capturing a single moment as a photograph fails to convey its intensity. In Bizen ware, too, small specks of sesame glaze layer upon one another to create a single, powerful impact. One might say that a sequence of subtle movements flows together to produce a grand impression. Perhaps a work that feels monotonous lacks this sense of continuity. However, today’s snowy landscape, while breathtakingly dense, is also refreshingly crisp and truly beautiful.