Mashiko: Up And Coming

MASHIKO UP AND COMING

goldmark

In collaboration with the Mashiko Pottery International Association and the Japanese Embassy, we are delighted to present the work of these five young Mashiko talents.

Though wildly different in their approach to clay, each potter’s work reveals in its imagination just how rich the cultural dialogue between East and West can be.

front cover:

ST 3

back cover:

NN 33, 27

Catalogue ÂŁ10

MASHIKO: UP AND COMING

MASHIKO

UP AND COMING

Introducing Five Mashiko Potters Yoshinori Hagiwara Taketoshi Ito Natsu Nishiyama Toshihiko Takeda Shikamaru Takeshita

goldmark 2017

Main text: © Max Waterhouse, 2017 Pot photographs: © Jay Goldmark / Vicki Uttley Landscape: © Kan Matsuzaki Portraits courtesy of the potters Design: Goldmark / Porter ISBN 978-1-909167-43-8 Goldmark Uppingham, Rutland, LE15 9SQ, UK +44 (0)1572 821424 goldmarkart.com

The Mashiko Pottery International Association (MPIA)

Since its establishment, this association has held overseas exhibitions

by Mashiko potters and supported them as they travel to make pots abroad. Now, in collaboration with the Goldmark Gallery, we are holding a new exhibition of up-and-coming Mashiko potters who will in turn introduce the next generation of makers to the UK. As for the participating exhibitors, our committee members had a serious screening meeting in October, 2016, and selected five potters. We believe that this exhibition will give them a chance to be more conscious about developing their own style and that of Mashiko pottery by embracing and learning about different cultures, and by reviewing the cultures of Japan and Mashiko from a new and foreign perspective. We also plan to hold a ‘Triumphal Return Exhibition’ by all five potters at the No. 3 exhibition hall of the Mashiko Museum of Ceramic Art after their UK show.

Lastly, I would like to express my gratitude to all organizations and people concerned for their generous cooperation in making this exhibition a success.

Ken Matsuzaki, Representative Director (MPIA)

MASHIKO: UP AND COMING Introducing Five Mashiko Potters The Japanese have a saying that calls the ceramics town of Mashiko to mind: daidō shōi – ‘big similarity, little difference’. In the eighty years since the legendary Hamada reinvigorated its trade in clay, generations of potters have established their workshops here as they strive to make a name for themselves. Each strikes out to find an individual voice, to offer a ‘little difference’ in a town of tradition, but what remains at the core of every Mashiko potter’s work is that ‘big similarity’ of spirit: a desire to use local materials; to extract as much potential from those materials as one can; and to merge the essences of art and craft, form and function, into a coherent whole.

Looking around this exhibition space, one would be hard-pressed to find five more wildly distinct potters to represent this common cause. Between them, not only are we treated to enormous variations in form and touch, surface and character, but find that their breadth of inspiration is international. Yoshinori Hagiwara takes the conventional glazes of Mashiko – black Tenmoku, russet Kaki, and turquoise Nuka – and modernises with geometric designs that recall the abstract patterns of Staffordshire slipware. Dots and lines find a natural rhythm on guinomi and small vases, while the lustrous surfaces of persimmon platters are softened by mossy Yōhen ash. By extreme contrast, the gutsy, jagged, carved and torn pots of Natsu Nishiyama

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reincarnate the do-or-die spirit of Peter Voulkos. Her sake ‘monsters’ combine Jurassic dinosaur bodies with dainty beaks and curled up feet, while her jungle-green Oribe, cresting and pooling into opaque aquamarine blue, is a thing of prehistoric beauty.

Elsewhere in this show intercultural flavours become more pronounced. Aboriginal arrowheads straight out of Australia dance across Toshihiko Takeda’s hand-painted cups and vases, their surfaces textured like hessian cloth. Thrown and twisted with mathematical precision, these pots juxtapose ancient motifs with forms that would feel at home in a catalogue of Scandinavian design. In the work of Taketoshi Ito, the shadows cast by his intricately carved vases are as beguiling as the pots themselves. With smoky, metallic glazes he captures the ornate opulence of Persian and Moorish silverware, tempering their extravagance with a minimalism of black and white surfaces. And in the large, quiet pots of Shikamaru Takeshita one can see the silhouettes of big-bellied African water carriers and Japan’s own Jōmon pottery. His square-lipped pouring bowls are refined with a touch that belies the coarseness of his clay, while blushing wood-fired porcelain bottles shimmer with pink and purple pearlescence.

This exhibition offers a feast of differences, for eyes and hands

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alike. Yet it is the origins shared by each potter’s work that seem more vital than their many points of divergence. As Pot Shop assistant Claire described when unpacking these pots, huddled tight within their tomobako boxes, each of these makers has been given a lump of earth; that each one has produced work so wonderfully their own says as much about clay’s infinite possibilities and the native imagination of Mashiko as it does their personal knowledge, skill, and vision. To steal a phrase from the great potter Takeshi Yasuda, Mashiko is a town of people ‘playing with mud’: what a privilege to witness so varied and tangible results as these.

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THE POTTERS

Yoshinori Hagiwara

1994

Completed the course at the Tochigi Prefectural Ceramics Instructional Institute

2004

Selected in 78th National Art Exhibition (Kokuten), and thereafter repeatedly selected

2007

Selected in 61st Tochigi Prefectural Art Festival Exhibition, and thereafter repeatedly selected

2010

Became a Second-tier Member (Jun-Kaiin) of the National Art Exhibition Committee Selected in 25th Tochigi Prefectural Art Exhibition, and thereafter repeatedly selected

2011

Appeared on the NHK TV program, ‘Art Pot’ (Bi-no-Tsubo) Solo Exhibition at Pucker Gallery, Boston (thereafter every two years) Workshop at Noble and Greenough School Exhibited in the Mashiko Special Exhibition at Tiendschuur Museum in Netherlands

2012

Exhibited in ‘Mashiko Pottery-Get to know, Touch, Use’ Exhibition at Tokyo Institute of Technology

2013

Workshop at Harvard Ceramics Studio, Phillips Exeter Academy and Bridgewater State University

2014

Designated Certified Traditional Craftsman of Mashiko Pottery Exhibited in ‘Ambiente 2014 DENSAN’ at Frankfurt,Germany

2015

Workshop at Colby-Sawyer College and Massachusetts Institute of Technology

11

Awards The Encouragement Prize at 81st National Art Exhibition (Kokuten) The Kokuga Prize at 83rd National Art Exhibition The Encouragement Prize at 62nd and 63rd Tochigi Prefectural Art Festival Exhibition The Encouragement Prize at 26th Tochigi Prefectural Art Exhibition The Grand Prize at 27th Tochigi Prefectural Art Exhibition The Takekawa Prize at 29th Tochigi Prefectural Art Exhibition

Collections The Art Institute of Chicago Philadelphia Museum of Art Cattle Museum of Arts Tikotin Museum of Art, Haifa, ISRAEL Schein Joseph Museum of Ceramic Art at Alfred University Cornell University's Johnson Museum of Art, NY Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts The Cleveland Museum of Art Art Complex Museum Mashiko Museum of Ceramic Art

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YH 7

YH 8

YH 3

YH 59, 62, 53

YH 14, 13 17

YH 33

YH 15

Taketoshi Ito

1981

Born in Saitama Prefecture, Japan

2002

Started working at a pottery in Mashiko after leaving university

2007

Opened a studio in Mashiko

21

TI 18, 16, 20, 19

TI 23, 25, 24, 21

TI 34

TI 33

TI 17

TI 10

TI 15 28

TI 31 29

Natsu Nishiyama

1983

Born in Suginami-ku, Tokyo, Japan

2006

Graduated from Komazawa Woman’s University, Space Modeling Department Studied ceramics under Shugo Takauchi

2011

Opened a studio in Mashiko

2012

Relocated to Haga

Exhibitions 2012

Gallery Hiko , Nishiogikubo, Tokyo Tsukamoto Gallery, Utsunomiya, Tochigi

2013

Tanpuso Gallery, Utsunomiya, Tochigi Takaraen Gallery, Oyama, Tochigi SAZA Gallery, Hitachinaka, Ibaragi

2014

Keisei Gallery, Mito, Ibaragi Tsukamoto Gallery, Mashiko, Tochigi

2015

Nukunuku Gallery, Omiya, Saitama Tsukamoto Gallery, Mashiko, Tochigi

2016

Korin Gallery, Utsunomiya, Tochigi

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NN 39

NN 43

NN 48, 62

NN 33, 27

NN 5

NN 44

NN 19

Toshihiko Takeda

Sculpture 1993

Exhibited in Kanazawa Modern Sculpture Exhibition

1995

Exhibited in Kanazawa Modern Sculpture Exhibition The work ‘Absorbe’ was purchased by Kanazawa City

1996

Selected in the Kohdo Art Exhibition

1997

Exhibited in Kanazawa Modern Sculpture Exhibition Selected in the Kohdo Art Exhibition Received the Honorable Mention at Hokuriku Kirin Beer Park Outdoor Sculpture Exhibition ‘Memory’ Graduation work for Kanazawa College of Art, Sculpture Department was purchased by Kanazawa City

1998

Received the Honorable Mention at Hokuriku Kirin Beer Park Outdoor Sculpture Exhibition Selected in the Kohdo Art Exhibition Completed Graduate Course of Kanazawa College of Art, Sculpture Department

1999

Won the Encouragement Prize at Kohdo Exhibition and selected in the New Member Exhibition

2000

Won the Encouragement Prize at Kohdo Exhibition and became a fellow student

2001

Selected in the Kohdo Art Exhibition

Pottery 2000

Started learning ceramics from his father, Toshio Takeda

2005

Selected in Tochigi Prefectural Art Festival, thereafter 4 times in 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2012

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2013

Selected in East Japan Traditional Kogei Exhibition, ‘Kasama x Mashiko, Energy of New Generation’

2014

Selected in East Japan Traditional Kogei Exhibition, Tobiten and Traditional Kogei Exhibition

2015

Selected in East Japan Traditional Kogei Exhibition and Tobiten Won the Best Award at Lucy Lee Memorial Contest Selected in Traditional Kogei Exhibition Won the Encouragement Prize at Tochigi Prefectural Art Festival Received the Honorable Mention at ‘Hagi-Pottery in Present Form Exhibition’

2016

Selected in East Japan Traditional Kogei Exhibition, Tobiten, Traditional Kogei Exhibition, and Tochigi Prefectural Art Festival Received the Honorable Mention at ‘Hagi-Pottery in Present Form Exhibition’

Solo Exhibitions Keisei Department Store in Mito Kamakura Kogei SAZA Gallery Yamani Otsuka New Mikura Takaraen Gallery Tsukamoto Gallery

42

TT 7

TT 24, 23

TT 39

TT 40

TT 13

TT 5

TT 6

Shikamaru Takeshita

1977

Born in Mashiko, Tochigi Prefecture, Japan

1998

Completed the course at the Tochigi Prefectural Ceramics Instructional Institute

2000

Opened a studio with ‘Anagama’ kiln in Mashiko

2002

Received the Judge’s Special Award at 4th Mashiko Ceramics Competition

2005

Solo Exhibition at Mashiko Museum of Ceramic Art

2006

Selected in 6th Mashiko Ceramics Competition

2011

Exhibited in the Mashiko Special Exhibition in Netherlands

2012

Rebuilt ‘Anagama’ kiln

51

ST 4

ST 1

ST 18

ST 21, 22

ST 56-62

ST 28

ST 13

ST 7

ST 47

EXHIBITION DETAILS Organized by: Mashiko Pottery International Association ( MPIA) Cooperated by: Mashiko Museum of Ceramic Art Under the patronage of: Embassy of Japan in the UK Tochigi prefecture Mashiko Town The Shimotsuke Shimbun Co. Ltd North Kanto ALSOC K.K. North ALSOC Group ‘Eagle Club’ Mashiko Pottery Cooperative Society Selection Committee Members: Hiroshi Hoshito, Director, Mashiko Museum of Ceramic Art Satoshi Yokobori, Vice-director, Mashiko Museum of Ceramic Art Yuko Matsuzaki, Curator, Mashiko Museum of Ceramic Art Fujiya Sakuma, Chief Director, Mashiko Pottery Corporative Society Kazumi Otsuka, Chairman, Mashiko Shop Union Toyonori Usuba, Chief Director, e-machi net Yoshikazu Hirano, Honorary Consultant, The Mashiko Pottery International Association

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ILLUSTRATED POTS Yoshinori Hagiwara YH 3 YH 7 YH 8 YH 13 YH 14 YH 15 YH 33 YH 53 YH 59 YH 62

Big Bowl, Yohen, Kaki glaze, 20 x 40 cm Vase, Kaki glaze, 40 x 37 cm Vase, Kaki glaze, 31 x 32 cm Handled Teapot, Kaki glaze, 27 x 17.5 cm Handled Teapot, Nuka blue glaze, 31 x 19 cm Square Plate, 3 x 30 cm Set of Small Bowls, Nuka blue glaze, 3 x 15 cm Single Flower Vase, 14 x 11 cm Single Flower Vase, 13 x 11 cm Single Flower Vase, 23 x 11 cm

Taketoshi Ito TI 10 TI 15 TI 16 TI 17 TI 18 TI 19 TI 20 TI 21 TI 23 TI 24 TI 25 TI 31 TI 33 TI 34

Plate, Porcelain, Slip trail decoration, Silver overlay, 2 x 21cm Plate, Porcelain, Lotus Carving, Silver overlay, 3.5 x 28 cm Vase, Porcelain, Carved, Black metal, 21 x 9 cm Incense Burner, Porcelain, Carved, Black metal, 9 x 11 cm Vase, Porcelain, Carved, Black metal, 17 x 10 cm Vase, Porcelain, Carved, Black metal, 15 x 9 cm Vase, Porcelain, Carved, Unglazed, 14 x 9 cm Vase, Porcelain, Carved, Unglazed, 22 x 9 cm Vase, Porcelain, Carved, Unglazed, 16 x 5 cm Vase, Porcelain, Carved, Unglazed, 27 x 10.5 cm Vase, Porcelain, Carved, Black metal, 22 x 6 cm Bowl, Porcelain, Carved, Black metal, 19 x 28.5 cm Vase, Porcelain, Carved, Black metal, 44 x 26 cm Vase, Porcelain, Carved, Silver overlay, 39 x 28 cm

Natsu Nishiyama NN 5 NN 19 NN 27 NN 33 NN 39 NN 43 NN 44 NN 48 NN 62

Plate, Oribe style, 5 x 28 cm Hollow Vase, Carbonization, Red Oribe style, 27 x 15 cm Hollow Guinomi, Carbonization, Red Oribe style, 9 x 7 cm Sake Monster Bottle, Carbonization, Red Oribe style, 18 x 11 cm Hollow Vase, Oribe style, 36 x 18 cm Vase, Oribe style, 47 x 39 cm One Sided Bottle, Oribe style, 11 x 23 cm Sake Monster Bottle, Oribe style, 18 x 11 cm Hollow Guinomi, Oribe style, 9 x 7 cm

Toshihiko Takeda TT 5 TT 6 TT 7 TT 13 TT 23 TT 24 TT 39 TT 40

Senmon Vase, Striped, 35 x 19.6 cm Senmon Vase, Striped, 40 x 22.5 cm Vase, Nunome Saisiki, 44 x 16.5 cm Vase, Nunome Saisiki, 12 x 13 cm Tokkuri, 13 x 9 cm Guinomi, 4.5 x 7 cm Bowl, Nunome Saisiki, 16 x 26 cm Vase, Nunome Saisiki, 25 x 11 cm

Shikamaru Takeshita ST 1 ST 3 ST 4 ST 7 ST 13 ST 18 ST 21 ST 22 ST 28 ST 47 ST 56

Large Pot, Natural ash glaze, 37.5 x 42.5 cm Large Pot, Natural ash glaze, 35 x 40 cm Large Pot, Nanban Ware, Tanegashima style, 38.6 x 41 cm Vase, Nanban Ware, Tanegashima style, 27.3 x 20.3 cm Vase, Nanban Ware, Tanegashima style, 16.5 x 17 cm Vase, Nanban Ware, Tanegashima style, 21.7 x 12.6 cm Bowl, Natural ash glaze, 10.3 x 29.6 cm Bowl, Natural ash glaze, 10.3 x 30.6 cm Vase, White Porcelain, Natural ash glaze, 13.8 x 16.1 cm Set of Rectangular Plates, Nanban Ware, Tanegashima style, 8 x10 cm Sake Cup, White Porcelain, Natural ash glaze, 8 x 6 cm

OUR POTTERY CATALOGUES

1 Phil Rogers

2 Clive Bowen

3 Lisa Hammond

4 Mike Dodd

5 Ken Matsuzaki

10 Ken Matsuzaki

11 Mike Dodd

12 Clive Bowen

13 Svend Bayer

14 Nic Collins

19 Lisa Hammond

20 Svend Bayer

21 Jean-Nicolas Gérard

22 Ken Matsuzaki

23 Takeshi Yasuda

28 Lee Kang-hyo

29 Jean-Nicolas Gérard

30 Mike Dodd

31 Ken Matsuzaki

32 Lisa Hammond

OUR POTTERY FILMS

1 Phil Rogers

2 Ken Matsuzaki 3 Svend Bayer

4 Nic Collins

5 Jim Malone

6 Mike Dodd

7 Anne Mette Hjortshøj

We've made thirty-six pot catalogues to date, one for each of our shows.

They're mostly 64 pages, fully illustrated with scholarly essays.

Learn more about the great makers. Watch our films, copy them, share them as you like.

6 Svend Bayer

7 Jim Malone

8 Phil Rogers

9 Lisa Hammond

15 Ken Matsuzaki

16 Jim Malone

17 Mike Dodd

18 Anne Mette Hjortshøj

24 Nic Collins

25 Phil Rogers

26 Ten Japanese Potters

27 Clive Bowen

33 Jim Malone

34 Anne Mette Hjortshøj

35 Phil Rogers

36 Five Mashiko Potters

8 Lisa Hammond 9 Jean-Nicolas Gérard

10 Takeshi Yasuda

11 Phil Rogers

12 Clive Bowen

13 Lee Kang-hyo

All goldmark pottery catalogues and dvds are £10 each plus p&p goldmarkart.com

The Japanese have a saying that calls the ceramics town of Mashiko to mind: daidō shōi, ‘big similarity, little difference’. In the eighty years since the legendary Hamada reinvigorated its trade in clay, generations of potters have established their workshops here as they strive to make a name for themselves.

goldmark

14 Orange Street, Uppingham, Rutland, LE15 9SQ, UK +44 (0)1572 82142466 goldmarkart.com