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see you are busy!”
“We can talk while I work. I’m getting some things ready for another
show.”He pulls a large lump of clay (he calls it ‘mud’) from one of the bags and
begins kneading it like dough.
“Well, when I arrived in Japan I drifted to Shinjuku, Tokyo’s Greenwich
Village. Like most foreigners, I earned a living teaching English — doesn’t matter
where you’re from, Germany, France, Mexico, you can get a job somewhere
teaching English. I had some work in the movies! I was an American general in
one, just had to look the part since all the dialog is dubbed in later. Yoshimi and I
met and soon started living together — her parents were extremely displeased. I
planned to become a poet, but Yoshimi said I’d never earn a living doing that. A
friend suggested I go to Mashiko to find out about traditional Japanese pottery. I
met Nakano-san there and went to work for him as an apprentice. Yoshimi and I
moved to Kasama a couple of years ago after I returned from Canada.”
“Not far from here. Mashiko is a little too artsy-fartsy for me — too many
people playing at being artists — and Kasama is cheaper because it’s not. Kasama
is more of a commercial ceramics centre, not so much folk pottery. Mashiko is the
home of Hamada.”
“Here’s the story:Bernard Howell Leach [1887 to 1979] established
ceramics and the potter-as-artist in the twentieth century. Leach studied traditional
pottery technique and style in the Far East for many years. He was highly
influenced by Sung dynasty ceramics. Leach made Japanese raku and stoneware
familiar in the West. Early on, he met Hamada Shoji [1894-1978] a Japanese
potter his own age who was also rediscovering the traditional techniques. Together
they established a kiln in St. Ive, Cornwall in the 1920s. Later, Hamada
established his own kiln in Mashiko, revitalizing the pottery craft that had
flourished there in ancient times. Hamada was named a ‘Living National Treasure’
by the Japanese government in 1955. Nakeno-senei, my teacher, began as an
apprentice to Hamada.”
by Morley Evans