Really there
is no East, no West,
Where then
is the South and the North?
Illusion
makes the world close in,
Enlightenment
opens it on every side.
Buddhist quatrain
The ceramic history
of Japan goes back a very long time. The earliest work found is currently
accepted to be dated at about 10,000 years old. This is probably the oldest claywork found to
date anywhere on the Earth. These early Neolithic earthenware pieces that have been found in excavations,
referred to as Jomon, already show a great sophistication of
technical execution as well as aesthetic sense, so the craft of clayworking was
already well developed in Japan at a very early time.
Not only does
Japanese ceramics have a long history, but it is broad too. The
islands are blessed with copious deposits of diverse types of
clays, and pottery making was quite widespread. Japan is a rugged,
volcanic, mountainous country and travel in early times was
arduous. Because of this, each pottery making area developed a very distinctive style based on
local foods and traditions, the available clay
type, and kinds of firewood available.
Japanese ceramics
was influenced by a unique blend of the multiple factors of war,
trade, cultural, and religious exchanges flowing out of mainland China.
These influences passed through the mediating and transforming influence of the
Korean peninsula. They were eventually fully digested and eventually emerged as truly Japanese
interpretations. The isolation from the rest of the world that Japan placed
itself into for many years
helped to preserve many indigenous traditions well into the 20th
century.
At the end of the
15th century AD, Juko Murata established strict rituals for the
drinking of tea, and by so doing, started a practice that would have a
profound influence on the ceramics of Japan. By the late 16th
century AD, the impact of the formal tea ceremony (Chado= "The way of
tea") on Japanese
ceramics resulted in the ceramic arts rising to the most revered
of art forms in the country.
This strong
influence continues to this day. Handcrafted pottery in Japan is
looked at as a fine art form the equal of painting and sculpture,
exhibitions of clayworks are frequent, and the populace tends to
routinely use handcrafted works in their day-to-day lives. Being
a professional potter in Japan is a highly respected and often
highly profitable profession.
As a result of this
reverence for claywork (yakimono), pricing for contemporary
handcrafted Japanese pottery is very different from that here in
the United States. For example, a small handcrafted yunomi, a
day-to-day tea cup about half the size of an American coffee mug,
typically costs about the equivalent of $40.00 (Y4000). A yunomi
by a master potter like Shimaoka Tatsuzo will typically cost about $800.00
to $1000.00.
"Their Tea
Masters have been arbiters of taste and culture who have set
standards of aesthetic appreciation such as no other race has
approximated.
Bernard
Leach.............
When John took his
first ceramics course in college the Ceramics I instructor, Brenda Minisci,
showed a well used, grainy black and white 16mm film called "The Village
Potters of Onda" which was shot in a rural Japanese pottery
village by Robert and Edith Sperry. This wonderful film documented the
lifestyle of the people of Onda Sarayama and the Mingei (folk craft) pottery they
produced for daily life in Japan.
This film had a
profound influence on John at that time. The work spoke of a deep
tie between people and process, life and work, material and
object, form and function, nature and beauty. The straightforward
pots for living were striking in their simplicity and yet showed great
sophistication. Strength and subtlety evident all at once.
The simplest of techniques these potters utilized produced the most stunning
results.
That old film seemed
to resonate with something lying deep and unnoticed in John's
being. In fact, it really started a career and a search for an aesthetic
understanding that continues to this day.
As a student of
ceramics in the 60's, John soon encountered the "bible"
of potters at that time..... "A Potter's Book " by the English
potter Bernard Leach. There was not the plethora of b ooks on ceramics
which we t end to ta ke for granted today, and technical
information was somewhat limited. Leach's book contained all
manner of useful, straightforward information needed by a new
potter, and it was a treasured tool.
In it, Leach opened
with a chapter called "Towards a Standard" that was
inspirational in it's approach to living life and the making of
objects. Leach's standards and ideals were harsh and
demanding..... but broad and empowering at the same time. Bernard
Leach himself was greatly influenced by Japanese pottery, art,
religion, and culture, and his book was permeated with aesthetic
standards and philosophy that came from Leach growing up as a child in China and
then living many years in Japan as an adult.
In "A Potter's
Book ", Leach spoke highly of many Japanese potters with whom
he had the opportunity to work. But one person stood out in his
descriptions most particularly; Hamada Shoji, from the small town of Mashiko in
Tochigi prefecture. There
were a few small pictures of Hamada's work contained in Leach's
book, and John was particularly taken with their casual looseness
yet great strength.
In this way, John
was first introduced to the work of Hamada Shoji....... which
actually started a long convoluted journey that would eventually
lead to John visiting Mashiko in 1996.
Hamada Shoji and Barnard Leach were greatly responsible for the resurgence of
the handcraft pottery movement in the middle of the 20th century
in much of both the East and the West. Japan, recently opened to
the world, was at the time going through what England had already
experienced..... the industrial dehumanization of life. The
return to handcraft ideals was a reaction to this.
Hamada and Leach
espoused the importance of truth in materials, truth in making,
and truth in lifestyle. Integrity at all levels. They found
beauty in the work of the untutored, the innocent, the common.
"It is
interesting to see an Oriental pick up a pot for examination, and
presently carefully turn it over to look at the clay and the form
and cutting of the foot. He inspects it as carefully as a banker
a doubtful signature - in fact, he is looking for the bona fides
of the author. There in the most naked but hidden part of the
work he expects to come into closest touch with the character and
perception of its maker."
Bernard
Leach.............
Hamada and Leach
were part of the founding fathers of the "Mingei"
movement in Japan. Mingei can be loosely translated as
"folk craft". This movement placed great value on the
unselfconscious volume production of day-to-day objects by
anonymous handcrafts makers. They recognized the rare, true and
enduring beauty in many of the objects these people made.
This is not to say
that either Leach or Hamada themselves actually were
"mingei" producers in the purest sense. Both of them were highly trained artists,
and so could never be that unselfconscious simple craftsperson. But they
borrowed heavily from the aesthetic standards of those folk craft works, and incorporated those ideas and techniques into
contemporary studio claywork that was distinctive and individual,
yet also born of the ages of human endeavor.
Hamada and Leach
traveled around the world sharing ideas and techniques based in
Japanese philosophy and Mingei aesthetics. During their visits to the USA, they had a huge impact
on American ceramics in the 50's and early 60's. That influence
continues, since most of the teachers of ceramics that John's
generation encountered were steeped heavily in the Hamada/Leach
tradition. John continues to share those traditions and ideas
with his students.
John studied from
afar every detail he could find on Hamada Shoji's work. Research
in the library, traveling to exhibitions, collecting pictures,
and reading books helped to supplement his more formal education. The
best two books he found were "Hamada, Potter " by
Bernard Leach and "The Way and Work of Shoji Hamada " by
Susan Peterson.
In 1971 a major
broadcast film about Hamada, "The Art of the Potter ",
was released and that excellent documentation of his life and
work was the best material that John could ever find on Hamada-sensei in the West.
Viewed repeatedly, John absorbed all that the film had to give.
Here were images of Hamada throwing, glazing, and firing, with
Bernard Leach talking about the philosophy behind Hamada's work
and the Mingei movement. Not having resources at the time to
actually travel to Japan, this vicarious approach to study had to
suffice. John hoped that he would someday get to Mashiko and meet
Hamada.
This interest in
Japanese aesthetics gradually broadened, and John studied
everything he could find here in America on Japanese pottery and
pottery techniques. He also looked a bit at sumi brush painting, and
the wood arts. He learned many Japanese cooking techniques. He
took formal college-level Asian art history courses, and went to
workshops featuring Japanese-related techniques.
American ceramics
terminology is peppered with Japanese language names for
techniques because of the influence of Japanese potters over the
years, including that of Hamada Shoji. Because of this, in 1995,
John began to study the language a little.
Was this
foreshadowing?
In 1996, John won
the Judge's Special Prize in the First Mashiko Ceramics
Competition for a piece he had entered. As a result of this, John was invited to go to
Mashiko for the awards ceremony and the exhibition opening by the
prefectural and town governments.
As a result of this great honor, John finally had the opportunity to visit Japan after
his years of intense interest from across the ocean. Because of the
award, many doors were open to him while he was there, and the
trip provided an incredible study opportunity. He visited many
pottery villages in addition to Mashiko, met many potters, and
explored many museums and cultural sites.
Only about a day after arriving in Mashiko, John had the
realization that Hamada Shoji had been dead for over 20 years, and was now more
of a historical influencing figure impacting the work and success of the town
rather than a permeating presence. Without Hamada Shoji having settled
there, Mashiko would certainly not be what it is today, but the best new works
of the potters there have continued to evolve from Hamada-sensei's initially
planted influence.
In Mashiko, John was
fortunate enough to visit with Hamada Shinsaku, Shoji's first son in pottery, who is
himself a famous potter in Japan. He also met Toomo, Shinsaku's
son, a well known practicing potter of the third generation. John
found Shinsaku's more contemporary studio, lifestyle, and work to
be refreshingly different from his father's very traditional
approach and very unexpected.
Since returning from
Japan, John has been digesting all of the vast information he
acquired while there. So the study and the Japanese influence
continues.
Who knows where it
will lead next?
(above written in 2000)
Chawan by John
Baymore
Where it has now led in 2002 !
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Handcrafted Claywork
A Journey to Mashiko, Japan
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