A Bowl That Waits for One Flower
There's a particular winter ritual behind this bowl: choosing good narcissus bulbs from Zhangzhou, carving them by hand, then tending them through the coldest months so they send up shoots and buds right on schedule — blooming, ideally, around Spring Festival, gold centers and white petals against green leaves, fragrance filling a room that's otherwise still waiting for spring.
Made in early winter 2018, this bowl was designed around that one flower: hand-painted with a 凌波仙子 — a "water fairy," the narcissus's classical poetic name — rendered lively and a little playful across the glaze. The shape itself runs straight-sided and upright, faintly echoing the narcissus's own posture, kept deliberately small so it sits comfortably in a smaller hand.
It's a bowl built for a flower that hasn't bloomed yet when the bowl is bought — patience built into the object, the same way it's built into growing the thing it's named for.