The 38th Asahi Ceramic Art Exhibition's grand prix-winning work looks as if the top is going to snap off at any moment and destroy the piece. Yet it defies gravity, frozen in time by fire.

The work, by Iwate's Yukinari Izumida, is made of rough, beige clay with cracks, fissures and coarse edges that complement the soft curve of the base and the edgy, brittle top. It has won Izumida a place among an illustrious group of past Asahi award-winners that includes Kiyoyuki Kato, Goro Suzuki, Tatsutsuke Kuriki and Masamichi Yoshikawa. One thing that sets the Asahi apart from other large exhibitions, such as the Japan Traditional Arts and Crafts exhibition or the Japan Ceramic Exhibition, is that it doesn't segregate the works into different group classifications: sculpture here, functional there. It mixes all ceramic genres in one bowl.

A seven-member jury presided over the two-day selection process. It was headed by Osamu Suzuki, who sadly passed away not long after. Suzuki was a cofounder of the influential postwar Kyoto ceramic group Sodeisha, and first served as an Asahi juror in 1985. Other jurors included four ceramic artists, one museum head curator and an art journalist. The jurors selected 96 works from among 679 submissions, 10 of which were awarded prizes.

To be accepted for this show is one way to get a career going. It's interesting to note that among the 583 people who submitted work, the largest age group was those in their 20s. Izumida is in his 30s. The exhibition has been touring Japan for a year and is now on its last stop -- your last chance to catch it this time around.