Valerie Zimany on sun 11 jan 98
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=3C=3C
A Customer of mine has a Student currently in Japan asking where should
a keen potter go to see:
1)Historic Pots
2)ditto Kiln sites
3)Modern/Recent Craft Pottery
The Student is currently in Tokyo, but is prepared to travel.
=3E=3E
Dear Steve,
I don't know if you've gotten all the information you need already, but
I'll contribute some info on a few places I visited during my Fulbright
grant in Japan this past year...
Mashiko - by far the best known because of HAMADA Shoji, but somewhat of a
commercial nightmare with busloads upon busloads of tourists going to the
=22warehouse=22 ceramic discount shops. The Hamada museum is quite nice to =
see
how he lived and worked, and his kilns. I'm sure there are still many good
potters working around town, but I didn't have much luck =26 was =
continuously
jostled by bargain-hunting grannies.
If your friend's student is planning on taking the Shinkansen down to the
Nagoya/Kyoto/Osaka area of central Japan, there are many better places to
get a less tourist-y view of a pottery town. Seto, along with Tajimi and
Toki (producers of Mino wares) cities are only about 1 hour from Nagoya and
have a number of museums, kiln sites, and local potters who may invite
visitors to view their kilns. Best among the museums is the Aichi-ken
Tohjiki Shiryokan which accidentally unearthed some 8th century anagama
kilns when digging to build a parking lot. There are ceramic bridges,
statues, you name it all over Seto and it is generally covered well in
guidebooks. Seto and Mino are the birthplace of Yellow Seto, Black Seto,
Shino, and Oribe, among the first true glazed ceramics of Japan.
Also in this area, south of Seto, is Tokoname - which is in my experience
the best, least touched, and most atmospheric ceramic town in Japan. On
the Izu peninsula and nearly 1,000 years old, it's about 1 3/4 hours from
Nagoya. Filled with crumbling black wood buildings and winding streets, it
was beautiful. There are ceramic walking tours mapped out for visitors and
many old kilns and generations-old ceramic factories. The local artists
are friendly and curious to meet foreign potters. Tokoname is most famous
for it's small, burnished red, side-handled teapots, but there are also
quite a number of modern artists who have settled in this area.
Furthermore, Shigaraki (famous for its rough tea wares - the clay body is
full of quartz particles that burst through the surface during firing) and
Iga are two other worthy ceramic towns in the Kansai area, heading from
Nagoya to Kyoto. Kyoto is host to kyo-yaki, a painted, light-colored
stoneware, and Raku-yaki - tea wares and bowls made by the descendents of
RAKU Chojiro (there is a fantastic Raku museum in Kyoto).
I lived in Kanazawa, a city on the west coast of Japan (4 1/2 hours from
Tokyo), known for Kutani-yaki overglaze porcelain and Ohi-yaki, it's own
teabowls and tea utensils that rival the Raku of Kyoto. Near Kanazawa is
Echizen, one of the Six Ancient Kilns of Japan (along with Seto, Tokoname,
Shigaraki, Bizen, and Tamba). And on the Noto Peninsula beyond Kanazawa
there is a wealth of beautiful, if not well known, small pottery areas.
The Kanazawa area, called Hokuriku, is way off the beaten path but well
worth the trip.
There are many, MANY more worthy places to visit in the north and south of
the main island (and not to mention Kyushu - Arita, Karatsu, Satsuma
pottery towns - and Okinawa - Tsuboya-yaki). A good place to get
information is the JNTO office in Tokyo, with tons of information and a
friendly staff, they have a pamphlet just on ceramics places to visit in
English. They can supposedly also help you schedule trips if you can't
speak Japanese.
As for modern clay, it's everywhere in galleries and the big department
stores' shows, but a great place to go if you're in Tokyo is the Green
Gallery, located in Akasaka-mitsuke.
If you'd like any more specific information, feel free to e-mail me
directly =26 I'd be happy to go into detail. As if I haven't already, sorry
so long=21
Valerie Zimany
shinju=40compuserve.com
o-bake=40spooky.org
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