[TOKO CLUB EVENTS] Gallery talk by Iwami Shinsuke/Tarum Hiroshi was held.
In conjunction with the "Iwami Shinsuke Exhibition: 20 Years of Anagama Kiln" and " Tarum Hiroshi Exhibition," a gallery talk was held on April 7, 2024.
We will be presenting the contents of a talk session between two ceramic artists and Touko's CEO, Tsukamoto Michiyuki.
Shinsuke Iwami
Born in Tokyo in 1964
1989 Graduated from Tama Art University, Department of Painting
1995: Moved to Mashiko and studied under Hiroshi Nakayama
1996 Trained at Hasegawa Pottery
1998: Became independent in Yamamoto, Mashiko Town
2002 Anagama kiln construction
2007 Cambodian Traditional Pottery Revival Project (until 2015)
2016: Raw material collection and pottery making project on Bornholm Island (until 2022)
Hiroshi Tarumi
Born in Tokyo in 1972
1992 Graduated from Bunka Gakuin Art College, Department of Ceramics/Worked at Kasama Kobayashi Ceramics
1995 Participated in the creation of a monument to commemorate the comfort women on Tokashiki Island, Okinawa
1997: Established a kiln in Nanyo City, Yamagata Prefecture
-Starting your career as a potter in Mashiko-
Tsukamoto
We are now starting the TOKO CLUB EVENTS | Iwami Shinsuke/Tarum Hiroshi Gallery Talk. In this gallery talk, we would like to ask the two artists about their activities and their thoughts on pottery making.
First, let me start with how we first met. I first met Iwami-san in 1999 at a workshop held by Korean potters Lee Kang-hyo and Zen Moon-hwan at the Mashiko Ceramic Art Museum.
There is a large vase on display at Hamada Shoji's residence at the Mashiko Ceramic Art Museum, and it is a work by Lee Kang-hyo.
There is also a doll-like object in the mini gallery, which is a work by Zen Mun-hwan. Iwami-san was there helping out at the time, and that's when I first encountered him.
I met Tarumi-san in 2000 when I held an exhibition called "Six Ceramic Warriors" at the pottery storehouse, where we fired the climbing kiln of the Sakuma Totaro Kiln.
Tarumi-san was in Yamagata, and I was introduced to him through a connection with other artists.
Iwami and Tarumi met after that, right?
Iwami
I wonder which one it is. LOL
Tsukamoto
Iwami-san and Tarumi-san are seven years apart in age, right?
Tarumi
I agree.
Iwami
But it's been almost as independent.
Tsukamoto
The Korean workshop held in Mashiko led to a pottery workshop being held in Korea, where you met many people who led to your subsequent activities.
Iwami
That's right. I met Mariko Ijuin, a ceramic artist who Tarumi-kun knows well, and also Gary-san in Korea, who later became my motivation for going abroad, and from there things started to develop in many ways.
Tsukamoto
Mr. Tarumi, you first encountered Okinawa through your relationship with Mariko Ijuin.
Tarumi
I was studying ceramics at Bunka Gakuin Art College. A senior student in the year above me was working for Ijuin, and he introduced me to him.
Tsukamoto
So you went to Okinawa with Ijuin?
Tarumi
That's right. After that, I graduated from Bunka Gakuin and worked for about three years at Kobayashi Pottery in Kasama City, which no longer exists.
At that time, Ijuin invited me to join a project to create a monument in Okinawa, which prompted me to resign and move to Okinawa.
Tsukamoto
That was in 1995.
That was a monument to comfort women, right?
Tarumi
We built a memorial for the comfort women on Tokashiki Island by digging up soil on the island and using that soil to make thick bricks, or rather tiles, and then we used the tiles to create a three-dimensional monument and a stage.
Source: Okinawa Hannohi Association, a nonprofit organization
Tsukamoto
Was that the first time you dug up the raw soil?
Tarumi
Yes. My first experience digging raw clay was in the mountains of Tokashiki. We were given some clay from road construction work and used it to build our own anagama kiln.
Tsukamoto
Is the monument big?
Tarumi
It's about the size of a pottery storehouse, so it's quite large and spacious.
Three-dimensional tile objects suddenly appear across the large site, and stages are scattered here and there.
Tsukamoto
And then you moved to Yamagata?
Tarumi
That's right. My mother fell ill while I was in Okinawa, so I was living at my parents' house in Atsugi at the time, but my mother's parents live in Yamagata, so I was thinking about living there in the future.
Because of this, I moved to Yamagata when I had the opportunity to have surgery there.
Tsukamoto
That was in 1997. At that time, Iwami-san was working at a pottery factory in Mashiko.
Iwami
That's right. It was around the time I was working at Hasegawa Seito.
Tsukamoto
For how many years?
Iwami
I was only at Hasegawa Seito for three years. Before that, I worked at a potter's wheel under a man named Nakayama for a year.
Tsukamoto
Iwami-san, you originally majored in oil painting at Tama Art University, right? Why pottery?
Iwami
Yes. I never thought about making pottery as a career until I was an adult.
However, when I was in elementary school, I wrote in my yearbook that I wanted to become a potter. I wrote things that made no sense, like I wanted to become a potter and fire pottery in Shigaraki or Shino.
At that time, my mother showed me a small book about Japanese pottery, and I heard stories about how potters fired their kilns in the mountains with firewood and only came down to the village once every few months.I had an image of what I wanted to be in the future growing up in my head, and then when I was asked to write about what I wanted to be in the future for my graduation album, I just wrote it down in a flash.
From then on, I never once remembered that I would become a pottery shop owner, even through junior high and high school.
I went to university and majored in oil painting, and after graduating I became a salaryman. I worked as a salaryman for about six years, but when I started thinking about making something, I met a junior from university who I used to hang out with often and who was a glassblower.
As I played around with the glass, I thought that doing some kind of craft work would be interesting. By the way, I remembered that I wanted to become a pottery maker. (laughs)
So that's why I chose to make grilled food.
Tsukamoto
What was the reason you decided to open a pottery shop in Mashiko?
Iwami
My wife was working at a company where there was a creator at the time, and he had a childhood friend who lived in Mashiko, so he said he would introduce her to her if she wanted to go and hear what he had to say.
So I came to Mashiko, but at the time I didn't even know the first thing about pottery. When people would say Mashiko is synonymous with Hamada Shoji, I'd be like, "Who is that?" lol. And when they asked me why it was Mashiko and not Kasama, I'd be like, "Kasama?" That's how I came to Mashiko.
To be honest, it didn't matter where it was made, but the fact that it was close to Tokyo was a big factor.
Tsukamoto
Why did you choose Kasama?
Tarumi
My parents were born in the Taisho era and were quite old, so I didn't think we could travel very far.
I got a job at Kobayashi Seito, where I worked, through an introduction from a senior colleague from my school.
Tarumi
At first, I was thinking about Mino and other places there.
Iwami
Unlike me, Tarumi-kun has a good understanding of pottery and chose the area where it was made.
-Meeting Ryoji Koie-
Tsukamoto
The Korean workshop held in Mashiko that I mentioned earlier was inspired by Ryoji Koie, a ceramic artist from Tokoname, Aichi Prefecture, who suggested we hold it in Mashiko. That's how I got connected with Ryoji Koie.
Iwami
I met them during a Korean workshop in Mashiko in 1999.
After that, in 2000, I participated in a one-month workshop held at Kyung Hee University in South Korea. We all stayed in the university dormitory and worked on the project. Mr. Koie was also there, and that's how we met.
Ryoji Koie (1938-2020)
Source: https://www.apollo-magazine.com/
Tsukamoto
I also think that the fact that Iwami-san went to Iowa in the US for a workshop in 2004 was a big factor.
When Touko celebrated its 30th anniversary in 2004, we planned to hold an art residency for Koie, and when we contacted him, he was in Iowa. He was working with Iwami at the time, and apparently he ended up sharing a room with Koie for two weeks.
Iwami
Those who know Koie-san will understand how difficult that is, haha. Koie-san had been coming to Mashiko frequently since 1999, so I knew him well and knew what kind of people he was and what kind of things he made, so I didn't get too close.
I participated in quite a few such events, but I tried to avoid getting involved with Koie, I would just peek over people's shoulders and watch them. He is someone who creates things with an incredible amount of, how should I put it, outpouring of energy, and he can be quite poisonous, so to me, getting too close to him would make me feel like I was going to break down.
The influence was so strong that I was afraid I would lose myself, so I tried to stay away from it as much as possible.
Then, in 2000, I was invited by a man named Gary, whom I met at a workshop in Korea, and in 2004 I ended up going to Iowa.
Gary said to me, "Sorry Iwami. I got the number of rooms wrong and we don't have enough people," and I replied, "Koie-san, we don't have a room, but Iwami, you only have one room, right?" I thought, "Oh no!" but I couldn't refuse. There were no more rooms.
So that's how you ended up sharing a room with Koie-san.
When I met Koie-san, he said to me, "I feel like I've seen you somewhere before," so it seemed like he somehow remembered my face.
But I still didn't want to be involved with him, so I tried not to be in the same room with him too much and would leave when he came in. I would also get up early in the morning and leave first. That's what I did from the beginning.
At the same time, he is a very warm-hearted person. He felt that he had to do something for young, up-and-coming potters, so he started giving lectures every night.
Iwami's work
Iwami
It was only after listening to his lectures that I began to become aware of the ceramic artist Koie Ryoji.
My impression of him was that he was a very avant-garde ceramic artist who created very unique objects. He made famous works such as "Chernobyl" and "Return to Earth," and he seemed like a strong artist.
However, he has a deep knowledge of very old pottery and antiques.
For example, he tells me about Raku Kichizaemon and says, "He's amazing. It's a little frustrating, but he's amazing. He even talks about digging a well. Those are great words," but he doesn't tell me what's so great about him, so it ends up being a riddle.
When I was thinking about what it meant to dig a well, the next day someone asked me, "Do you know what "tsutei" means?" I answered, "Does it mean that something will be passed through there?" and they just kept quiet and that was the end of it.
He doesn't give me the answer. It just makes me think again. I was wondering what this person was asking me, and one day he asked me, "How old are you?" When I answered, "I'm 40," he simply said, "That's late."
He said things that almost gave me the final nudge. Another day he asked me, "Why do you make pottery?"
At that time, I was happy just as long as I was using the potter's wheel. It was the joy of being able to make things, and I was happy just making things. I was making things with 100% that feeling, and I was glad that I became a potter, so when I answered, "Because I enjoy making things," they were silent.
This incident had a huge impact on me, and I stopped touching clay. I felt like maybe it wasn't enough for me to just make things because I enjoyed them.
So I went to the workshop half-heartedly and came back, but for the next three months I wasn't able to make anything.
I would go to work, but I didn't know what to make. I didn't know what kind of work to do. I would go home, eat lunch, go back to work and worry. I repeated this for three months. Making things was painful. That was the first time I ever felt that it was painful, and even now when I think about it, I get overwhelmed, but it was Koie who gave me that kind of pain, and I'm grateful to him for allowing me to still be able to work today.
Tsukamoto
Mr. Koie first came to Mashiko in 1963. At that time, he visited Shoji Hamada, Tatsuzo Shimaoka, Shoji Kamoda, and Gen Murata. It was around the time that Mr. Kamoda first started using anagama kilns, and since he and I were the closest generation, we decided to merge. When Mr. Koie came to Mashiko around 2001, he asked me if I would like to tour the same course we did back then, so we did. Of course, Mr. Kamoda has passed away, but when I met his wife, I was impressed that we were talking as if we had just met, even though it had been nearly 50 years since we last met.
Tsukamoto
Koie-san didn't like Mashiko. He thought it was strange that 400 potters could make a living there. So, even though he hated Mashiko, he almost forced me to come here in 1992 and we held a talk event called Talk in Mashiko. By the time I came to Side Mashiko in 1999, I had almost forgotten about it. Anyway, he loved alcohol, and I must have been to Koie-san's house more than 20 times.
We drink until the morning, which is really exhausting. But even while we're drinking, Koie-san is getting a lot of inspiration from the young people. When I told him about a young person making pottery using a new method, I heard that Koie-san was the one who went to the studio early the next morning to try it out.
That's how greedy he was, and how stoic he was when it came to creating.
Iwami
He was amazing when he got drunk. In Iowa, I participated in an event where I gave a talk using a slideshow. I was still just starting out, so I projected my own work onto slides and talked about how I made it. Then, a drunk Koie-san was in the audience, and he started making a fuss, saying things like, "What's with that lantern-shaped thing? Put it away!"
By that time, I already knew Koie-san and we had become close enough that I could laugh and respond to him, so it was fine, but everyone around me froze up.
When the kiln firing begins, the participating artists take turns lighting the firewood, but I'm always like, "This isn't like lighting the bath! Fire more!" lol
Tsukamoto
Tarumi-san, what memories do you have of Koie-san?
Tarumi
I don't have that many. Ijuin went to Tokoname when he was a student, and it seems he became close with Koie there, and they are now friends. When I went to Okinawa, Koie was there to help with the construction of a monument, and he made about 100 tea bowls there. I remember seeing Koie's potter's wheel for the first time then and thinking it was amazing. Tokashiki has beautiful sea and sand, and the water is so clear you can see 50 meters below. In a place like that, Koie was swimming in just his briefs, and then sleeping on the sand, and the villagers were saying that he must have been hit by a monster. Lol
Tarumi
At the time, Koie's eldest son was a student at Okinawa International University and was involved in the creation of the monument. Through this relationship, I gradually got to know Koie. After returning from Okinawa, I only happened to meet him a few times, but I haven't seen much of his work.
Tarumi's work
Tsukamoto
Iwami-san, you must be the one who has traveled abroad more than any other pottery maker in Mashiko. I imagine that your experiences abroad have changed the way you make pottery.
Iwami
I think I may have stayed there for a long time. My first long-term stay was in Cambodia. Even then, I went to Cambodia without having any answers to Koie's questions, and I just had to figure things out on my own.
Iwami
At the time, I felt quite lonely while working. This isn't limited to pottery, but for something to sell, it means that people are interested in it, they like it and buy it, or someone appreciates it. When you don't get that recognition, you feel incredibly lonely. In that sense, I always felt lonely, and I wasn't selling much, and no one appreciated me, so I wondered what would happen to me in the future, and that's when I got the offer to go to Cambodia.
As part of a project in Cambodia, I went to teach pottery to local children. The children I taught had been turning pottery wheels or making pottery as part of their family business since they were about 9 years old, so in a sense they were professionals, about 20 years old, but they had never experienced glazed pottery like Mashiko ware.
Glazed pottery is a time-consuming process, so I don't think there was any hope for it to be possible. I think they probably thought it was impossible.
We first visited the site in 2007 to conduct on-site research and analyze the components of the local materials, and based on that we returned in 2009 to build a climbing kiln.
In 2009, we made our first products in Cambodia, made the glazes and fired the kiln, and it was only when the pieces were taken out of the kiln that their faces lit up. They were incredibly enthusiastic. Their joy at being able to make such things with their own hands was so strong that it was almost impossible to ignore, and at the same time, they began to see us as their teachers.
Iwami
I continued doing this until 2015, and it was there that my way of thinking about the pottery work I had been doing up until then changed. For example, it wasn't about winning awards for my work or selling my products, but the fact that it was so useful in a way that gave me confidence.
Iwami
What I had done up until then had not been in vain. That was a huge thing, and it became the biggest motivation for me to continue making pottery after that. However, because I had been doing that business for nine years, I was devoting myself wholeheartedly to making glazed pottery in Cambodian villages, and planting the seeds, so my own work didn't progress at all.
Iwami
I continued to create works in Mashiko during the nine years of the Cambodia project, but because I had to go back to Cambodia, my work was interrupted and it wasn't a period in which I could concentrate on creating works. During that time, I felt as if I was being left behind by other artists.
The other writers were steadily improving their skills, but the fact that I was still being useful was a great comfort to me, and I began to stop worrying about such things.
I no longer feel the bitterness and frustration I used to feel when other artists around me were selling well, or sigh when my work was selling like hotcakes in the tent next to me at a pottery fair.
Iwami
After the Cambodian project ended, I decided to go to Denmark in 2016. The trigger for this was when I met a Danish ceramic artist named Annemette at a tea bowl event held in Korea in 2011.
At first, I was asked if I wanted to exhibit my work at an exhibition, and I was only planning to do so. However, I was asked to exhibit my work and also participate in the opening ceremony, but I realized that I couldn't go all the way to Denmark just for the opening ceremony.
So I replied that if they would allow me to make pottery in Denmark, I would consider it, and I ended up going to Denmark.
I actually went to Bornholm, an island in Denmark, to work there. I didn't know anything about the island, but it was a wonderful environment with an incredible amount of clay, feldspar, and other natural ceramic materials. There are many things that can be made there that are made from materials that aren't available in Mashiko.
I became fascinated by the island, which is rich in such raw materials, and that's where my experience in Cambodia came in handy. The reason is that Cambodia doesn't have a ceramics culture, so there's no place to buy ceramics raw materials. So we spent a lot of time gathering everything ourselves from nature, extracting what we could use from it, and making pottery, and that experience was very useful when I went to Bornholm to look for clay and feldspar.
Tsukamoto
The results of the project will be exhibited at the pottery storehouse in March 2023.
▼An exhibition that marks the culmination of the project on Bornholm Island https://mashiko.com/exhibition/20230311-iwami/
Tsukamoto
Tarumi-san, you also dig up the raw soil, but where?
Tarumi
After experiencing digging raw clay in Okinawa, I started to look at the mountainside in Yamagata, and if there was a construction site, I would get some and test it out. Now I'm making pottery by digging clay in the mountain behind a temple in the neighboring city of Nagai. The feeling when you fire something is different between making something with familiar clay and making something with purchased clay. The clay cracks and breaks up, and I find that appealing.
Tsukamoto
It's not exactly easy to use, is it?
Tarumi
That's right.
Tarumi
But it's precisely because it's not that easy to use that it comes out. I think it's the shape and the way it's baked. I like it that way.
Tarumi's work
Tsukamoto
Going back to Koie-san, I often drove him to Mashiko, and whenever he saw the mountainside he would say, "Stop for a second," and we would go and take a look.
Iwami
There are some potters who love construction sites.
Tarumi
That's right. If the clay isn't sticky enough for some items, adding 10% to 30% regular clay will usually work. There is a type of clay called Kibushi that is a little fire-resistant and sticky, and I often add that. For things like boards, I use just the clay.
Tsukamoto
Plain clay means clay as it is.
Tarumi
I agree.
Tsukamoto
In the past, people in Mashiko would take all the good clay layers, but now that kind of soil is gradually disappearing. There are also clay layers that can't be dug up because houses have been built on top of them. In the past, many people would go and get the soil themselves, but what about Iwami's soil?
Iwami
I go digging like that, and also, a man named Kawada from Mashiko makes clay using soil 100% dug in Mashiko, so I buy it from him.
The Mashiko soil that I dug myself had a lot of rotten wood in it, and when you burn the rotten wood it turns into holes so it's unusable.
This has to be removed, so I have the clay filtered by a clay refiner. However, it's boring if it's too clean, so I mix sand and a little wood rot with the filtered clay. My main clay is the one I use, and I go to all that trouble to make it closer to the original clay. I guess I just take the stance of using things that are around me.
Tsukamoto
There's an old saying in the world of pottery: "First, the clay, second, the firing, third, the craftsmanship." The clay is of course the most important, and while the craftsmanship done by humans is important, nature is the fundamental premise in the world of pottery. Iwami-san fires his pottery in a wood-fired kiln. The subtitle of this exhibition is 20 Years of Wood-Fired Kilns.
Iwami
Yes, since I started using the anagama kiln, I no longer use the kerosene kiln.
I mostly use it unglazed.
Earlier you said, "First, clay, second, firing, third, craftsmanship," but in my own work I think that these three things are parallel.
The reason why there is an order of 123 is that the firing cannot be decided until the clay is decided. And if the clay and firing are not decided, the production cannot be seen.
Koie-san often told me, "The soil comes first." There is a certain soil that is needed to make this, so I think that's the order.
However, in my work, I believe that clay, firing, and craftsmanship are all one and the same.
Iwami's wood-fired kiln
Tsukamoto
How about grilling, Tarumi-san?
Tarumi
It's a kerosene kiln.
Tsukamoto
Don't you do much wood-fired kiln work?
Tarumi
I don't put it in much now.
Tsukamoto
Nowadays, there are very few wood-fired kilns left in Mashiko. The Great East Japan Earthquake was a turning point. Many of Mashiko's climbing kilns and anagama kilns were destroyed. I think one reason was that firewood was difficult to use, as it was made from red pine from around Fukushima.
Mr. Iwami, you were firing your kiln when the earthquake occurred, right?
Iwami
It was just when we were doing the final step of the kiln firing, called the "Otakibe" (large firing). This is the process of putting as much firewood as we can into the kiln. We put in so much firewood that there are no gaps left and it's completely filled with firewood. After that, flames spew out of the chimney for about 40 minutes, and it becomes an uncontrollable situation, but just as we were finishing the "Otakibe" (large firing) the earthquake occurred.
Flames were shooting out of the chimney a couple of meters, and it was shaking. Looking at the kiln, you could see it rippling. The temperature was a little over 1300°C, so the kiln itself was soft. Pottery is soft while it's being baked. It may be hard to imagine, but pottery that deforms in the kiln does so at the highest temperature. It's quite soft at that point. The kiln itself and the supporting bricks are both made of pottery, so they had softened to a certain extent, but there was nothing we could do, and if it collapsed, it would start a forest fire and the whole mountain behind it would burn down, so my mind went blank.
Flames from the kiln
Tsukamoto
But you managed to get the work right?
Iwami
You can't get it. What are you talking about? LOL
I couldn't get any at all. I had an exhibition at the pottery storehouse from April 4th, so I used the kiln to fire the pieces for that exhibition.
You don't remember, do you? lol
Iwami
The glaze melted in the kiln and the pieces stuck together, making them unusable.
I separated the pieces that looked to be in bad condition and sanded them down nicely, but that only left scratches, so I decided to re-fire them in a kerosene kiln.
However, at that time, many people needed kerosene to keep warm, and I remember feeling very sad when I had to go out and buy it to fire the kiln. I wondered if I was really doing the right thing.
At the time, Mashiko's artists were also afraid of aftershocks, so few people fired their kilns. So, in a situation where work could not be resumed, I thought that someone had to restart and somehow bring some vitality back to the town. I feared that Mashiko would remain at a standstill, and despite the aftershocks and planned power outages, I somehow managed to fire pieces and hold an exhibition in the pottery storehouse.
No customers came at all, but the pottery shop owner said, "We're glad you did it."
Tsukamoto
At the time, we had decided to hold a pottery market, but I remember not knowing what to do.
Iwami
The pottery storehouse was also destroyed. The entire back yard was turned upside down and completely destroyed. I also volunteered to help with the restoration.
Tsukamoto
I'm a little surprised that Iwami and Tarumi hadn't had any contact until now.
Iwami
I knew that, though.
Tarumi
I agree.
Iwami
Whenever we meet, we talk to each other, but just a few days ago, I was talking about things like, "When and why did you decide to start pottery, Tarumi-kun?" lol
Tsukamoto
I think you will have a different impression of the pottery after hearing about the behind-the-scenes process of pottery making during this gallery talk. Please come and see it at the exhibition venue.
Thank you for today.
Iwami/Tarumi
thank you very much.
