Ripple

Name: Ripple: Xipi Lacquer Dry Tea Tray
Brand: mofluxse
Price: 179.00 USD
Availability: InStock

Xipi Lacquer Dry Tea Tray

A surface that moves. Xipi lacquer — "rhinoceros skin" — is created by building up dozens of layers of colored lacquer, then grinding down until the cross-sections reveal a flowing pattern of concentric rings, like water stirred by a single drop. No two trays are alike. This is a dry tea board: no reservoir, no drain, just a flat plane of lacquer on which the tea ceremony unfolds.

The Story

Layers of Time

Xipi lacquer begins with a wooden core, wrapped in linen and sealed with raw lacquer. Then the artist applies layer upon layer — red, black, gold, sometimes yellow or green — each coat allowed to cure for days before the next. When the build-up is thick enough, the surface is ground flat with water and charcoal, revealing the edges of every layer in a pattern that looks like tiger skin, or ripples on water, or the grain of strange wood.

The process takes months. A single tray may receive thirty coats of lacquer, each applied in a humidity-controlled room where the air smells of tree sap. The final surface is deep in a way that paint can never be — light enters the lacquer, bounces between layers, and returns warm and alive. To set a pot on it is to place a still life on a moving sea.

Detail