Kyushu Ceramics

There are some basic realities about traveling in February to the Saga Pottery area in northern Kyushu:  It’s not a heavy tourist time, so you can take your time and really look at the pottery.  But, it’s February, and when it’s cold and snowy, which it was, the potters and shopkeepers take the day off.  The third realty is that you can get lucky, and lucky I was.

Early ceramic plate, Karatsu

I spent the first day in Saga-land in Arita, a small village about an hour by train from Nagasaki.  It snowed on the way. Most of the shops were closed and those that were open offered a mix of wares, primarily tea and sake cups, rice and miso soup bowls, and soy sauce and relish plates.  Though some displays seemed touristy and factory-like, I later learned that each dish was hand made and hand painted.   Several hundred years ago, it was a great achievement to be able to make the same shape consistently and repeatedly.  It is still quite impressive to watch a potter working to do the same now.

Ceramics, Arita Ceramic Museum

I trudged up to the Arita Ceramics Museum, high on a hill, and saw an interesting, extensive collection of old ceramic pieces that gave me a sense of the craft’s history.  Upstairs was a stunning display of 100 contemporary ceramic pieces.  Interestingly, two of the pieces were by women (not shown here).  When my friend and former potter Karen had been here years ago, no women made pots.  Later, at the inn where I stayed, I asked the proprietress about this, since many in her family are potters.  From her firm but quiet, “no”, I gathered that it was normal for potters to be men; for women, it still was just not done.

Late that afternoon, I went to a Gen-emon Kiln, an active pottery workshop, and watched the process of pottery making for over an hour.  Two men were throwing pots, making sure that the height, width, depth, shape, exactly matched the desired dimensions.  Others (both men and women) each specialized in different steps: drawing the pattern, painting the initial lines, filling in, glazing, firing, polishing, etc.   They reminded me of the miniaturists described in Orhan Pamuk’s My Name is Red, working carefully and with such precision that they eventually went blind.

Ceramic quarry, Arita

Then luck happened:  I was staying at Seibouan, a lovely ryokan in the countryside with a delightful, outgoing proprietress.  She was from a family of potters and had married a potter who was also a wonderful cook.  We had a great meal, joined by a farmer girlfriend of hers, with good conversation and much laughter.  

Potter at Nakazato

The next day, I think Miyoko took pity on me, for she took me to a couple of ceramic shops, small one-family operations rather than the wholesaler stores I had visited the day before, and we saw some gorgeous ceramics.  At one shop, a gentleman showed us how he created a design of overlaid shades of colors on one piece:  for each color “layer”, he carefully pressed on tiny pieces of paper, soaked with paint, then took off the paper, leaving a perfect spot of color behind.  Then he put on the next layer, overlapping the first color, and continued for as many as five layers.  Miyoko’s friend, the proprietress, gave me a book of last year’s Japan Traditional Crafts Exhibition (THE national juried show, to which acceptance is a real honor), and pointed out three pieces in it, including one with the layered design.  Her brother made one, her husband another, and her son the third.

Painter at Gen-emon Kiln

Imari Bridge

Miyoko then took me to Imari, the next pottery tour on my journey and, after lunch, left me to my devices.  I walked up the main street here, quiet with not much that intrigued me after seeing her friend’s wonderful ceramics.  But the village’s bridges and some signs were strikingly surfaced with tile.  Then I took the train to Karatsu, my last ceramic stop, where I stayed at a lovely modern hotel looking out on the sea, treated myself to a wonderful dinner and went to bed.

Plate at different stages of creation

The next morning, luck struck again.  As I walked up the entrance of the Nakazato Taroemon kiln, a westerner came out towards me, who on closer look seemed to be an American.  And he was!  What’s more, he was an American from Denver, Barry Krzywicki, a potter who was traveling for a month doing research, drawing on his colleagues’ introductions to potters in Japan (the only way to get entry to the more well-known artists).  We talked briefly about where we each had been, etc. then he went off to lunch. 

Korean-style kiln, Nakazato

I went in, was entranced by the pottery, and Endo, a young salesmen invited me to the second show room, with work by Nakazato XIII (juu-san) and his son, Nakazato XIV (juu-yon).  The Japanese craft system is feudal in structure, with the father passing down his skill, craftsmanship, and name, generally to his son, generation after generation.  Endo said that Nakazato senior, now deceased, had been one of the top potters in Japan, a Member of the Japan Art Crafts Association, second in honor to being designated a Living National Treasure.  His son had not yet been invited to be a member of the Association, at least in part because at 55 he was too young.  Some of the father’s pieces were priced at 1 million yen, roughly $1.25 million in today’s dollar, while the son’s were selling in the 3-500,000 yen range.  “Juu-yon” was the president of the Nakazato company, had no disciple, but his style influenced the work of the men in his studio. Unlike the Nakazato ceramics, these pieces were unsigned; instead there was the company seal of three dots.

By this time, “Mr. Barry” was back to spend the afternoon watching the men in the workshop.  He asked if I could come along, and I gladly did, though briefly as I felt I was intruding.  There I got so see the multi-chambered kiln (a Korean style, Barry said), and the single and dual-chambered Japanese kilns.  As we watched a graceful, highly skilled potter, Barry told me that the Koreans had brought the practice of kicking the drive wheel clockwise, the opposite of what is done in the west.  Again I watched, fascinated.  Barry and I agreed that the Japanese attention to detail and meticulousness comes from a different place than that of stereotypically “anal” westerners:  here it is out of a sense of care and respect for the natural material, almost a sense of honoring both the clay and the craft.  It was so wonderful having someone explain to me what I was seeing, whether the Japanese salesman and I using our iPhones to translate, or Barry who had been a potter for over 25 years and deeply loved his art.