In 1980, Finnish potter Otto Heino attended a ceramics conference in Japan. There he met a Buddhist monk in search of a lost colour: a pale oat-yellow that had been made popular in 4th Century China. The process that made the colour had become lost, because it was so sought after and so esteemed, that those in charge of maintaining its integrity feared it would be applied to substandard wares, in substandard ways. So Otto and his wife Vivika made it their work to rediscover the recipe for the lost hue.
In 1995, just two months after Vivika passed away, Heino rediscovered the yellow. The ceramics world took notice and descended upon his studio in Helsinki. Otto Heino's work took off, and the potter became rich through six-figure sales of his pieces. The Chinese government offered him $1 billion for the rediscovered recipe of the yellow, but Heino refused. He feared, like those once in charge of the colour that the colour would end up being applied to pieces that weren't worthy of it. He died without revealing its make-up to anyone.
It does beg, this question. Would you share something with the world, or keep it close to retain its integrity?
