The Lens

Stand on a beach in Itoman and the water in front of you is not one color. It is three. Pale where the sand is shallow, green over the reef flat, and a blue that goes almost black where the reef drops away.

The pieces in this lens are attempts at that.

Mizukage means water shadow. Tomori Ryu, a craftsman certified by Okinawa Prefecture, worked from the light inside the water rather than the surface of it, from the underside of a wave and the color of the sea inside a cave.

Subtropical Sea, by Teruya Mitsunori, starts from the reef, which Okinawans describe as a cradle. Small fish are worked into the form.

Yanbaru Forest takes the other half of the island, the forest in the north and the light that comes through evergreen leaves.

Umikagan is an Okinawan word for the moment clouds are reflected on the sea.

How it's made

Color is built in layers while the glass is still moving. A second color is picked up over the first, then the piece is blown out and the two stretch together. Nothing is painted on afterward. No two pieces match because the stretching cannot be repeated exactly.

Pairing

Awamori over one large piece of ice. Cold sanpin tea. Water, which is the honest test of any glass.