Sixty-six years ago, a young English art student in Tokyo found himself at a gathering of Japanese sculptors, painters and poets. Their party game consisted of decorating unglazed raku (stoneware pottery), which could be painted, glazed and fired within an hour. The foreigner was handed a plate. He was nonplused. "What on earth does one put on a pot? . . . I made a drawing of a parrot. They plunged it into some glaze and it turned quite white; I thought they didn't like my drawing, but then I saw everyone's plate went...
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