Yoji Yamada - Flow and Fire

YOJI YAMADA

goldmark

YOJI YAMADA

YOJI YAMADA

Doug Fitch & Lisa Hammond

goldmark 2025

Flow and Fire It is approaching twenty years since I first met Yoji Yamada. He would accompany Lisa Hammond to the various pottery fairs up and down the country in his role as her apprentice. I couldn’t claim to know him – I don’t imagine I am even on his radar now – but back then, we would exchange nods and smiles of recognition.

All these years later, I am flattered and honoured to have been tasked with compiling this essay about his work.

I write, not just from the perspective of someone who has enjoyed viewing the pots he makes, but as a maker myself, with a history of employing similar decorative techniques. This gives me an insight into the challenges of some of the process that Yamada practises so exquisitely on his pieces.

I refer particularly to the remarkable and accomplished slip trailed platters, which reference the baking dishes that were commonly made in Britain in the eighteenth century, predominantly in Staffordshire and North Wales.

Such pots were adorned with fluid trails and bold patterns of clay slip, applied to a contrasting background to great visual effect.

They were not the fine porcelain pieces afforded by the upper classes, but rather the everyday pottery used by the less wealthy population.

While many makers in the United Kingdom draw influence from Japan, it gives me much pleasure to observe the impact of British pottery in the practice of Eastern potters. This can be traced back

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to the arrival of Bernard Leach and Shoji Hamada, when they established the Leach Pottery in St. Ives, Cornwall in 1920.

Leach, who had lived in Japan, acted as a cultural intermediary, helping to introduce Japanese ideas to Britain and vice versa. Until this time, the traditional, rustic country pottery of Britain was certainly not considered sophisticated enough to be art, and pottery was nothing but an unassuming, working-class trade.

It was during Hamada’s time in England that he was exposed to the charm and liveliness of English slipware. He was captivated by the humble, robust pots of the country potters.

Hamada and Leach made some very fine slipware pots in red earthenware, with a traditional lead glaze, during the early years of business in St Ives. With Leach’s first, and arguably most important apprentice, Michael Cardew, they experimented and developed a range of slipware for a short period, before it was replaced with a more robust and resilient stoneware.

Despite abandoning slipware, Hamada combined some of the techniques with his stoneware pottery, pouring and trailing glazes, demonstrating that tradition never stands still and is constantly developing in response to the needs of the times.

However, the work of the traditional slipware potters resonated profoundly with the ideals of the Mingei movement, which had been recently established in Japan by Hamada’s close friend Soetsu Yanagi.

It embodied the values of craft that Yanagi celebrated in his appreciation of Japanese and Korean folk pottery. They were humble wares, made in volume, with great skill. The pots were affordable enough to be used in the daily lives of the common

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man, with absolute attention to functionality. Fluid decoration was applied speedily, with honed expertise. What might be considered mistakes in more refined pottery were embraced as part of the process, and a trueness to the materials that added to the humility of the work.

Yanagi visited Leach and Hamada in England and in the subsequent years he and Hamada amassed a collection of English slipware dishes which they took back to Japan. Some pieces were sold in Kyukodo, a gallery in Ginza, Tokyo, and a few were added to the collection of the Mingei Folk Art Museum in Tokyo.

In 2003, curators at the Museum contacted the descendants of the collectors who had bought the dishes at Kyukodo and several were loaned back, to be reunited in an outstanding exhibition of British slipware.

Potters can often cite a moment of magic that changed their lives, when they set eyes on a particular pot that invoked an emotional response in a way that no other had before. It is an epiphany; in that split-second, there is great clarity, and the path to travel becomes suddenly apparent.

I remember this happening to my friend Nic Collins, when he witnessed Shiro Tsujimura’s work for the first time. For me, it was viewing a post-medieval jug in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London that moved me to tears.

For Yamada, that moment occurred when his eyes fell upon the poster for the aforementioned exhibition at the Folk Art Museum, entitled The Beauty of English Slipware. The poster bears a rectangular dish with a delightfully stylised bird, slip trailed in white and brown on a black ground, all beneath a rich, golden-yellow,

59. Large Maruzara, slip trailing with feldspar powder, 3.5 x 28 cm

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galena glaze. It is indeed a magnificent image, and a copy of the poster has adorned my workshop wall for many years.

Yamada was transfixed.

His fascination with traditional British pottery persisted, and in 2007 he was motivated to travel to England to undertake an apprenticeship with Lisa Hammond.

Upon returning to Japan the following year, he sought employment at Furuya Porcelain Factory, and then, in 2013, he built a kiln in Tashiro, Shigaraki Town, Shiga Prefecture, where he continues to make his extraordinary pottery.

Yamada is one of Japan’s leading exponents of the Yakishime technique, a name which combines the Japanese verb, to fire, yaki, with that of shime, which means to harden.

The unglazed pots are fired for a long period, at a very high temperature, in a kiln fuelled with wood. The heat work from the lengthy firing renders the clay impervious, and the wood ash from the fuel settles on the surfaces of the pots. It melts, due to the high temperatures, and forms areas of glaze that vary from a light sheen to much heavier trickles, depending on the positioning of the pieces in the kiln. Some surfaces are simply matt, granting the naked clay the opportunity to display its variations in colour and shade, from red through a whole range of earth tones, which result from differences in temperature and atmosphere within the kiln chamber.

This is an ancient process that dates to the twelfth century in Yamada’s home region of Shigaraki, where he joins generations of potters that have used the locally found clay deposits to employ this method of making.

101. Medium Rectangular Dish, oiled with glaze trail, 4.5 x 24 x 19.5 cm

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That is not to say, however, that Yamada’s work is simple imitation – indeed far from it. He has taken long-established methods, materials and processes, and has successfully fulfilled the most difficult of challenges when using the same basic elements as his forebears: he has developed his own distinctive voice. This is revealed particularly in his expressive and dynamic slip trailed decoration.

His tools are rudimentary. The slip is emitted by gravity, from a tin can, which acts as a reservoir, via a narrow tube, onto the pot.

The speed of the hand will dictate the thickness of line: the slower the movement, the more of the fluid will flow onto a particular area.

Timing is everything, and Yamada has very evidently mastered this, applying the slip with apparent ease.

There is such joy in Yamada’s deployment of slip, sometimes in the most delicious proportions. The generous boldness of the slip as it is poured across the surface from the trailer captures the rhythmical movements of his body, as fluid, swirling lines wind back and forth and crisscross. Trailing slip in this manner is like a dance, with gentle swaying of the back and flowing movements of the wrist. It is almost meditative and demands absolute focus.

On some pieces, the trailing is much finer, as the loops rise and fall to create meandering patterns, whilst some more formal compositions are in rows, almost replicating Western italic text.

In contrast to the more precise decoration, the unfettered and brave application of broken lines and asymmetric dots on some of his smaller bowls demonstrate the self-assurance of Yamada as a maker.

On dishes where white, conjoined dots are poured onto a black

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ground, the illusion is created whereby the darker negative spaces become shaped like abstracted stars, switching interplay between background and foreground.

Taller vessels proudly display the earthy qualities of Shigaraki clay, with naturally occurring feldspar inclusions, known as ‘crab eye’, bursting through the surface to produce a white speckled texture. These are randomly overglazed with grey-green, where molten ash deposits flow, to become incidental decoration, formed during the pot’s journey through the kiln. The knowledge of how to set and fire a kiln to achieve such varied effects is the culmination of years of experience.

Yamada is an accomplished thrower, and during his apprenticeship with Lisa Hammond his pots were all wheel-made.

The pots in this exhibition, however, are made without use of the potter’s wheel, other than perhaps as a turntable, enabling the pots to be rotated slowly while they are being constructed with coils.

This technique results in slightly asymmetric vessels, with the undulations from the process left evident as the coils are built up and melded together. The organic nature of the pieces is further enhanced by the milky-white feldspar eruptions. Ragged-edged rims bring the pots to their conclusion, softened by heavy ash deposits from the kiln firing.

A keen eye for form ensures that Yamada’s pieces quietly command their space without crying out for attention. He produces work which evokes a sense of timelessness. It is tactile and visually rich, skilfully evolved and contemporary, yet it is still firmly built upon the stable foundations of tradition.

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In contrast to the flatware, the taller vessels are much closer related to the pots that have been made in the Shigaraki region for centuries. There are glorious Tsubo jars, their rounded bodies culminating in a narrow neck with a flared rim, and the wider mouthed Kame jars, with roughly textured surfaces that appear to be ancient.

I don’t claim to be a scholar of Japanese pottery, and it is simply my own observation that the Tsubo might be considered a ‘standard’ by which a potter’s accomplishment may be judged.

Certainly, these are quite spectacular examples.

This is the first time that Goldmark Gallery has exhibited a body of work from a single maker, made up entirely from hand-built pieces, and Yamada is an inspired choice to premiere the techniques.

It is the formula for a magnificent body of work, where the elements of characterful clay, well-made pots, and deft decoration, together with an intuitive understanding of kiln firing, are brought together.

These are the vital elements which, when combined, infuse the outstanding pottery of Yoji Yamada with its most invaluable quality: integrity.

Doug Fitch Slipware potter and writer

2. Large Koro Vase, slip trailing with feldspar powder & natural ash glaze, 27 x 32.5 cm 18

Beginnings I first met Yoji Yamada when he was 25. Word had spread, even in Japan, that I took on apprentices. Yoji turned up to an exhibition I was having in Tokyo and asked, via the gallery owner, if he could come to London and apprentice with me. I answered that it might be possible – and then, I am afraid, I didn’t think too much more about it. How would that work, with language barriers and visa obstacles?

About a year later, at the potters fair in Rufford, Yoji appeared out of the crowd. He said, ‘“Can I come back with you to London and spend a few days with you to show you I really want to be your apprentice?” I didn’t have the heart to say no after such an effort.

Yoji did indeed return with us, and a few days later I asked him when he could come back to start. He told me, ‘I must win the lottery to get a visa!’ At that time there was a lottery of sorts on how many visas were granted for young Japanese people to come and work in the UK. He did manage to get a visa (he won the lottery!) and almost a year to the day, Yoji arrived back at Maze Hill.

I am sure neither of us will forget Yoji’s first day. Within the first few hours, while I was at the back of the pottery on the phone, two men came by, first to scope out the place and then, while one of them distracted him, to rob Yoji of pretty much everything he had: passport, bank cards, £1,000 in cash. What a welcome to the UK! My Japanese potter friend Rizu, who was also staying with me,

11. Large Tsubo, scalloped rim, natural ash glaze, 27 x 23 cm

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explained that this is London, not Japan, where theft was comparatively rare.

Somehow, Yoji recovered from this disaster, and I will always be grateful for the help we received from a friend at the Japanese embassy to get him a new passport and visa.

Life gradually settled down for Yoji, who was living with me and my family. I would hear him working on his English very early in the mornings, every day, half awake and half asleep. He improved quickly, so one day, while I was out of the pottery, I asked Yoji to answer the phone. I remember being asked to do the same in Japan and how nerve-wracking it was, understanding very little of what was being said to me. One day I returned to the pottery and Yoji had answered the phone. ‘Sticky phoned!’ he said with conviction. ‘Sticky?’ I said. ‘Yes, Sticky from Goldmark Gallery!’

Poor Vicky got that nickname for a good while after!

Yoji had to put up with living with a teenager who took the micky, roast dinners with some eccentric friends of mine, cooking and eating unfamiliar food. Even our (strange to him) Christmas traditions.

He was being thrown in the deep end all the time, which he coped with admirably.

Yoji, like all of my apprentices, practised throwing a range of the Maze Hill standard ware – mostly mugs, espressos and beer cups to hone his production skills. However, my experience with Yoji differed from previous apprentices in his attitude and approach.

Japanese deshi (apprentices) anticipate what will be happening next in the studio and prepare for it by having tools and clay at the ready, something I was not used to. I would be sitting in my corner of the studio, grumbling to myself about where I had mislaid some

13. Vase, oiled, 29.5 x 26.5 cm

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tool or other, and Yoji, hearing this, would immediately jump to attention and start looking on my behalf. I came to really appreciate this when packing the kiln: how intuitive he was at having ready the next piece to stack. Was he a mind reader? Or perhaps just a well-trained deshi. Either way, Yoji soon understood how I worked and became very much an integral part of studio life.

That year went by very fast: lots of making and soda firings, exhibitions, trips out, Christmas open studios…and suddenly he was gone.

Yoji had already worked for a while making pots before he came to the UK. There was very little soda glazing in Japan in the early 2000s – perhaps only Euan Craig (an Australian who had moved to Mashiko) and a few salt glazers up until that point. I think raw glazing slips and soda glaze was Yoji’s draw for working with me, as he already had a passion for slipware. He worked hard and gave so much to experience all he could in just a year. Although Yoji hasn’t built a soda kiln yet, I’m sure he will one day.

Since then, Yoji has gone from strength to strength. House, studios and kilns have been established, a marriage and two children. He has developed a unique style, initially influenced by English antique slipware, now totally unique to him, as the work is unglazed and wood fired.

Deservedly, he has gained a big following of his work in Japan.

I wish him great success with his first solo show in the UK at Goldmark Gallery and I look forward to spending some time with him again.

Lisa Hammond, MBE Soda and Shino glaze potter, founder of Adopt a Potter and co-founder of Clay College Stoke

3. Very Large Jug, oiled, 48.5 x 28.5 cm

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16. Small Koro Vase, slip trailing with feldspar powder & natural ash glaze, 15 x 18.5 cm

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previous page:

48 & 47. Rectangular Bowls, oiled, 6 x 27.5 cm 81. Maruzara, slip trailing, 2 x 24.5 cm

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previous page:

Selection of Earthenware Plates, 2 x 24 cm 10. Large Jug, oiled, 33.5 x 19.5 cm

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1. Large Koro Vase, slip trailing with feldspar powder, natural ash glaze & carbonization, 30 x 33 cm

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49 & 93. Oval Bowls, scalloped rims, oiled, 6 x 27.5 cm & 7.5 x 21 cm

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72. Small Jug, oiled, 20 x 13 cm

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previous page:

24. Oval Plate, slip trailing with natural ash glaze, 4.5 x 32 cm Selection of Maruzara and Mamezara, slip trailing with natural ash glazes, 2 x 14 cm

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Selection of Koro Bowls, slip trailing, feldspar powder & natural ash glazes, 8 x 12 cm

5. Very Large Rectangular Dish, slip trailing with natural ash glaze & carbonization, 12 x 53 cm

previous page:

Selection of Maruzara, slip trailing with natural ash glazes, 3.5 x 28 cm Medium Rectangular Dishes, oiled with glaze trail, 4.5 x 24 cm

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6. Large Tsubo, natural ash glaze, 35.5 x 27 cm

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25. Rectangular Dish, natural ash glaze, 7 x 29.5 cm

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60 & 59. Large Maruzara, slip trailing with feldspar powder, 3.5 x 28 cm

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12. Vase, oiled, 27 x 24.5 cm

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BRIEF BIOGRAPHY 1980 Born in Shiga Prefecture, Japan.

2002 Completed the Small Wheel-throwing Course at the Shigaraki Ceramic Research Institute.

2007 Studied under Lisa Hammond at Maze Hill Pottery, UK, learning soda glaze techniques.

2008 Worked at Furutani Ceramic Studio after returning to Japan.

2013 Built kiln in Tashiro, Shigaraki, Shiga Prefecture.

2019 Relocated kiln to Miyamachi, Shigaraki, Shiga Prefecture.

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Text: © Doug Fitch, 2025 Text: © Lisa Hammond, 2025 Photographs: © Jay Goldmark Design: Goldmark ISBN 978-1-915188-31-1 Goldmark, Uppingham Rutland, LE15 9SQ 01572 821424 goldmarkart.com

28. Rectangular Dish, slip trailing with feldspar powder, 7 x 34 cm

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