Wed, Jan 18, 2023
Some say that Kasama-yaki or Kasama ware — a government-designated traditional craft of Japan since 1992 — is “featureless” as it comes freewheelingly in so many shapes and colors. Yet, it has a 250-year history, dating back to the An’ei era (1772-81, Edo period) when Kuno Han’emon, the headman of Hakoda Village in Kasama Domain (modern-day Kasama city, Ibaraki Pref.), opened the first kiln in the area receiving guidance from a Shigaraki ware potter. In and around the village, pottery soon developed into an industry.
It was a matter of course for the local industry to go into mass production of various items for daily use such as jars and mortars as they were situated in an area rich of fine clay suitable for use on a potter’s wheel, and near Edo (modern-day Tokyo), which was already a large consumption area. During the Meiji era (1868-1912), Tomosaburo Tanaka (1829-1913), who gave the local products the name Kasama-yaki, expanded the business nationwide.
Entering the Showa era (1926-89), however, the business had no choice but to flounder mostly due to the dramatic change in the lifestyle of the Japanese. After World War II, a prefectural pottery institute (presently, Kasama College of Ceramic Art) was established in Kasama, which had the effect of changing the area into an artistic village, as it were, where artists like to gather.
Kuno Toen, the kiln in the Hakoda district of Kasama, where it all started, is now facing the risk of closure due to a lack of a successor and a decrepit workshop where stands a climbing kiln for glost firing (a city-designated cultural property) built on a foundation from the Edo-period. In the same building are a motor driven belt-powered potter’s wheel — much used until mid-Showa and still active in the workshop — and other pieces of machinery which altogether are best described as industrial heritage material.
“They tell me that workers’ families, too, came to the workshop to help out during the busiest times and that life here was half-pottery, half-agriculture,” says 14th generation potter Keiko Ito, 62.
In December 2020, Ito and her artist friends formed a group to start a crowdfunding campaign to uplift the kiln. They spent two months to fund about 10 million yen (about 78,000 dollars) to change the warehouse there into a gallery and to create rental space.
Aya Sasakura, 48, the operator of the group and a sculptor, wants more people to know about Kuno Toen. “Hopefully, it will become a place where those who want to experience Kasama-yaki can come and go as they please.”
Given that the domestic market for the traditional craft industry is declining, Kasama-yaki, today, is turning to the overseas market. According to the Kasama Pottery Association, works by a certain number of selected Kasama-yaki artists were sold in Britain in 2018 and 19. In 2020, a council was established to develop markets overseas, which lead to holding sales events in London. Sales of Japanese sake vessels are getting a big boost from the ongoing sake boom in Britain. The association says British customers find value in handmade products, and that its goal is to gain long-term fans.
More recently, Kasama-yaki vessels have been produced in collaboration with British designers and an e-commerce site for the overseas market has been launched. The KASAMA brand is steadily gaining its foothold.
(From The Yomiuri Shimbun and other sources)
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