Tanto is tile that departs from the usual impression of tile and words such as “straight,” “sharp,” and “cool” that are used to describe it. When the glaze is applied, each piece is picked up one at a time and two colors are applied crosswise with each other using an original technique. The places where white is blended with gray or blue is blended with gray are not colors controlled by an inkjet, but instead are hues produced when the glazes intermix with one another inside the kiln. Colors are yielded that have a depth that truly only ceramicware could offer. This tile with its distinctive check pattern has glazed areas coexisting with bare areas. This produces tile in which each piece is lavishly imbued with the charm of ceramicware.
With the intent being to keep as far away as possible from the feeling of squared corners and surfaces, we deliberately made the sides irregular. The missing and damaged areas in the sides that occur when the tile is picked up by hand for glaze application are likewise not defects but a characteristic of the methods used to manufacture Tanto.
Small hollows are formed in the surfaces. Joint filler remains inside the hollows, but this too is one aspect of the tile’s texture. By giving full play to this individuality and changing the color of the filler, we can also change the overall impression. Conversely, in cases where downplaying the prominence of these hollows is desirable, we recommend beige joint filler for TNT-1 and light-gray filler for TNT-2. Tanto is like no other “made in Japan” tile – do be sure to make use of it in discriminating interiors.
TNT-2
