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April 29, 2024
 

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CERAMIC SCENE

CULTURE / Art / CERAMIC SCENE
Mar 10, 2001
An innovative, magical potter
Meiji Era craftsmen lived in a world of divergent influences: Galle glass, French bronzes, Art Nouveau designs, Chinese celadons and tenmoku tea bowls, as well as their own traditions, whose product was at the crossroads between being an industrial export or the aesthetic vision of the individual artist.
CULTURE / Art / CERAMIC SCENE
Feb 24, 2001
Names writ in letters of fire
The leading ceramics quarterly Honoho Geijutsu recently published a very interesting survey in its 65th issue, listing the names of the most important (juyo) and popular (ninki) ceramic artists of the 20th century.
CULTURE / Art / CERAMIC SCENE
Feb 10, 2001
The beauty of the dark side
Black is usually associated with the "dark side" -- evil, frightening, and negative. But in the Way of Tea, a black chawan (tea bowl) is prized above all others.
CULTURE / Art / CERAMIC SCENE
Jan 27, 2001
The art of appreciating ceramics
In pottery, as with life, sometimes the most basic questions are the most important: Why is this so? Or, how did this happen? Or, what does this part mean?
CULTURE / Art / CERAMIC SCENE
Jan 13, 2001
Pottery with a Korean foundation
A simple fact to begin the Ceramic Scene 21st century: Many great Japanese ceramic traditions of western Japan began with Korean potters.
CULTURE / Art / CERAMIC SCENE
Dec 23, 2000
A life fired by devotion to ceramics
Many a foreign Japanese pottery scholar or collector owes a great debt to the life and work of Fujio Koyama (1900-1975). He wrote countless books and articles and some were fortunately translated into English; they are still a great source of knowledge and pleasure. These include the wonderful "The Heritage of Japanese Ceramics" (1973) (originally published in Japanese as "Nihon Toji no Dento" [1967]) and "Two Thousand Years of Oriental Ceramics" (1961). The first book, in particular, is required reading for anyone wanting to know the history of this potter's paradise.
CULTURE / Art / CERAMIC SCENE
Dec 9, 2000
The tiny treasures of Hikaru Shimamura
The great 20th-century Japanese potter Kanjiro Kawai (1890-1966) marveled at items that were small and most people overlooked: a stone, a leaf, a box of matches. He would toss them over and over again in his hands.
CULTURE / Art / CERAMIC SCENE
Nov 25, 2000
Jury is back on Mashiko exhibition
Mashiko is a name that many of you are familiar with, I'm sure. It is the name of a town in Tochigi Prefecture, as well as an internationally recognized pottery style made famous by the late Shoji Hamada. Today hundreds of potters reside there, and many come from around the world to study or pay their respects at Hamada's home, now a museum.
CULTURE / Art / CERAMIC SCENE
Nov 11, 2000
Bringing a new shine to old Kutani
When I first looked at the work of Yasokichi Tokuda III (b. 1933) I had to put on a pair of sunglasses -- I was almost blinded by the intensity of his kaleidoscopic Kutani porcelain.
CULTURE / Art / CERAMIC SCENE
Oct 28, 2000
Coal-crusted, ash-glazed, long-fired
From aspiring lawyer to automatic washing machine salesman to master potter, life has been an interesting but rocky road for Shigaraki ceramist Shiho Kanzaki.
CULTURE / Art / CERAMIC SCENE
Oct 14, 2000
Bringing simple beauty from the inside out
Hot fun in the summertime has slowly segued into the cool cultural events of autumn, which is popularly known as "bunka no kisetsu (the cultural season)." Autumn not only brings delightful weather but also a slew of exhibitions and festivals to keep anyone's schedule topped off. Rest your weary overworked eyes and have a look at some of the following.
CULTURE / Art / CERAMIC SCENE
Sep 23, 2000
Stopped in my flippin' tracks by a Shino tea bowl
I'm lucky enough to live only five minutes away from one of my favorite Mino potters -- and I don't even live near the Mino area. That's in Gifu Prefecture, whereas I reside in the potting wasteland of Numazu. I'm always asked about how I ended up here and I can only say that it was the will of something beyond a calculated decision. Some call that fate.
CULTURE / Art / CERAMIC SCENE
Sep 9, 2000
Putting no price on the beautiful
If all the pottery that I live with and use suddenly disappeared from my home, I would find myself quite blue. Those pieces, in their silent voices, spark my imagination and encourage me to live each day with grace and style; they are good friends. Someday I know I will have to part with them; that is inevitable, so I think of myself as just their caretaker until it is time for them to float along the river of time into another's hands.
CULTURE / Art / CERAMIC SCENE
Aug 26, 2000
Magic of Momoyama Mino still shines across the years
Let's take a walk back in time, say to the 1570s. Not just any ol' hike through the woods, but a pilgrimage to the birthplace of some of Japan's greatest ceramic wares.
CULTURE / Art / CERAMIC SCENE
Aug 12, 2000
Bringing out the flavor of the clay
Shuroku Harada is the consummate potter. First off, this highly successful ceramist doesn't put on any proud airs; he maintains a humbleness that is important when working with the earth. He shapes the clay and the clay has shaped him, so to speak, into what he is today; mutual respect at its best.
CULTURE / Art / CERAMIC SCENE
Jul 22, 2000
When a woman tends the flame
Women potters have been on the move in recent years in Japan, which is quite a contrast to bygone days when they weren't even allowed near a kiln.
CULTURE / Art / CERAMIC SCENE
Jul 8, 2000
Through the fires of experience to beauty
One afternoon a few months ago I had the pleasure of taking a visiting dignitary around Tokyo to view pottery. While we were riding around in his limousine and talking about Japanese pottery he said many times how sublime he thought it was.
CULTURE / Art / CERAMIC SCENE
Jun 24, 2000
An unknown craftsman from Mashiko
Many of you are familiar with the name and works of Shoji Hamada (1894-1977), arguably the most widely famed of all Japanese potters. When he settled in the backwater potting town of Mashiko, Tochigi Prefecture, in Taisho 13 (1924), no one imagined that he would turn the conservative potters' world upside down and bring potters and collectors from across the globe to their village.
CULTURE / Art / CERAMIC SCENE
Jun 10, 2000
The pure and silent voices of Shino
Shino pottery, so pure and calm, has since its birth in the late 16th century tugged at the heartstrings of the Japanese. A Shino chawan (tea bowl) figured prominently in Yasunari Kawabata's masterpiece novel, "A Thousand Cranes." There is a divine presence in the best of Shino wares. When one gazes down into a Shino chawan filled with emerald matcha, it is an uplifting experience.
CULTURE / Art / CERAMIC SCENE
May 27, 2000
Sweet treats on a canvas of glaze
Though most of the world loves labels, it's hard to give one to the pottery of Norio Kamiya. Many collectors of Japanese pottery feel more comfortable if they know that this style is called Kutani or that one Arita or that this potter has won this award and exhibits at such-and-such gallery. Only after many questions are answered does the potential purchaser decide if the pot comes home or stays; it's an intellectual decision.
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