Pado

YOUNG SOOK PARK (B. 1947) x CVC STONES 
Pado
dated May 2012 on base
White-glazed porcelain with 10 carats of diamonds
15 × 15 inches (38.1 × 38.1 cm)

 

Pado is a large-format hand-thrown porcelain moon jar in white glaze, with diamonds inlaid across the surface in a scattered constellation pattern. Titled with the Korean word for wave, the jar was thrown by Young Sook Park at her Seoul studio in the seventeenth-century Joseon dalhangari tradition, where two separate halves are kiln-fired and come together to form the moon-shaped jar, and worked closely with Charles de Viel Castel of CVC Stones who added drilled holes into the completed works to set the diamonds.

Park's dalhangari practice already operates on precarious terms: the two-hemisphere joining, the unpredictable kiln survival rate (only ten percent make it out whole), the imperfect asymmetry that defines a successful moon jar. Entrusting a completed vessel to de Viel Castel's drilling technique introduces a second round of structural risk on top of the first. The piece is one of only two large-format jars produced through the Young Sook Park × de Viel Castel collaboration — the rest of the series comprises of five medium jars — which places Pado at the top of the run by both scale and rarity. The diamonds function as a subtle new dimension across the porcelain rather than as ornamentation, catching light against the pure white glaze in a way that reveals them gradually to closer looking.

The Young Sook Park × de Viel Castel collaboration produced a small run of moon jars — two large and five medium — released through YSP Gallery, drawing on constellation imagery as the guiding design language. The collaboration itself emerged from a shared belief between the two artists in transcending natural materials — clay on Park's side, stone on de Viel Castel's — and set out to open a new dialogue around the limitations and expectations of ceramic art. The result is a convergence of trust, vision, and tension, built on mutual admiration between the Seoul and New York studios and a shared reverence for the integrity of both clay and stone. Rather than functioning as adornment, the diamonds bring out a new dimension through their subtle placement — an invitation to closer looking rather than a decorative act.