Salt Glaze is another technique that was perfected by Shimaoka's teacher Hamada Shoji through much experimentation. Shimaoka learned it from his teacher, but made his own improvements. While slip dripping is a technique that had existed in Mashiko before Hamada, salt Glaze was picked up by him from outside the town's ceramic tradition through studying ceramic techniques of various areas of the world. lts original form is used in the German liquor bottles and dates back to the 17th century. In this technique, the Glaze covers the surface in lustrous grains. In recreatirìg this glaze, Hamada coloured the unfired pieces with iron, manganese and cobalt, and while firing them at high temperature close to 1300 degrees, tossed in large quantities of salt wrapped in newspaper sheets. The sodium vapor that arouse from the burning salt would combine with the silicates in the clay and turn into sodium glass, forming a grainy layer of lustrous glass on the vessel's surface. Shimaoka's salt Glaze is created by gently sprinkling the salt into the kiln from a container of split bamboo that is inserted through the kiln opening. In comparison to his teacher's works, his salt Glaze pieces are much more refined in their appearance to reflect his gentle method. Hamada's pieces, with their irregular dense pockets of glass are wilder in look, while Shimaoka's show grains of uniform size and coloration and are more graceful. The graceful effect of salt Glaze -together with the sophisticated rope-impressed inlay- make his pieces very different from his teacher's. As I have mentioned, Shimaoka has started to use colour in his rope-impressed inlays. In his work, salt Glaze surface can be considered an even further evolved form of these colour inlays. Here, the inlays are formed by the colour glazes of manganese and cobalt, and especially in pieces in which this cobalt Glaze produces a bright colour and the glass grains add luster in beautiful cords, we can see the ultimate in colour rope impressed inlay.

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