The Lens

Ginga means galaxy. Sueyoshi Seiichi, who holds the national Contemporary Master Craftsman award, makes it from glass dark enough to read as black, with silver leaf scattered through it. Held to a lamp the black turns out not to be black at all.

Cosmo is the same maker looking up rather than out. The stars in it are bubbles. Some large, some small, placed on purpose where a defect used to appear by accident.

Tingara is the Okinawan word for the Milky Way. The piece scatters silver leaf and adds a phosphorescent glass that holds a little light after the room goes dark.

Miiniishi is named for the north wind that reaches Okinawa in October.

How it's made

Silver leaf goes on while the glass is hot enough to take it. The leaf tears as the piece is blown out, and that tearing is what makes the scatter read as a sky instead of a pattern. Where it tears is not the maker's decision.

Pairing

Awamori, neat, in the evening. This is the lens people buy as a gift for someone else.