Visiting Takumi – Imari arita ware The way of life I found in arita ware craftsmen

Imari and Arita ware: Yozaemon Yaba

Arita ware was first produced in Japan when a Korean potter brought back by Moriyasujun Takunagato, a vassal of Naoshige Nabeshima, the lord of Saga Prefecture at the time of Hideyoshi Toyotomi’s challenge in 1592, discovered high-quality pottery stone in Izumiyama, Arita Town.

Arita ware is still generally divided into divisions of labor. Because the difficulty of each process is very high, there are two roles of preventing technology leakage.

Encounter with ceramics

Previously, he was a local public servant.

Mr. Yaki was originally a local government official in Fukuoka Prefecture.

I think Mr. Yako, who was a police officer even though he was a local government official, has a unique career among craftsmen.

The police officers were strong as an organization, and even when Mr. Yako was employed, it was an organization that had to listen to all orders if there was even one seniority and rank.

There was an unreasonable thing like a daily occurrence, and Mr. Yaki who thought that it was not possible to remain like this went to the school at night, took the advancement examination, and climbed to the standpoint where it had the subordinate.

By the age of 28, he was promoted to section chief and had 55 subordinates.

However, even after being promoted, the unreasonable environment did not change, and I felt uncomfortable when I saw the world where the section chiefs around me were going up at the expense of their subordinates.

The manager’s job is to create an environment where subordinates can easily work because of Mr. Yaji’s idea.

Mr. Yaki, who felt that this world was too different from his character, came across ceramics when he wandered around Imari in Saga Prefecture, where his wife’s parents’ home is located.

The world of ceramics that attracts

Options are agriculture, fisheries and industry

When he started thinking about quitting as a police officer, Yahagi wondered what he would do in his next job.

I thought that what I could do was “agriculture”, “fishery”, or “industry”, but to agriculture, you need fields, to fish, you need ships, so industry … When he thought about it, he remembered the ceramics he met in Imari.

Mr. Yaha visited the workshop in Imari and volunteered to become an apprentice.

After that, Mr. Yako, who quit as a police officer, was in various ways, and eventually became indebted to Seiroku kiln for 15 years.

After independence, it was a theme park.

After becoming independent, Mr. Yaki was called out by Arita Porcelain Park and decided to demonstrate in front of the customer.

It was not seen by the general public during the training, so it seems that he was sometimes confused at first. However, as we watched it every day, we began to understand the detailed trends of our customers.

For example, there were people who felt that it was easy just to look at it, so I started the production experience to let them know what it actually is.

For about five years, you were indebted here and were able to interact with a total of about 16,000 customers who experienced pottery, and you said that it was a very valuable experience.

Mr. Yako’s apprentice “Miki-san’s work” exhibited together this time at the Takumi Corner

chopstick rest

Chopstick rest with cute pictures drawn one by one

a bowl

Make a bowl of the same shape, the picture expresses its own world view

Cup

Even if the shape is the same cup here, it looks like a completely different cup in how to put on a picture.

Yako’s Ceramic Style

Taking advantage of my life so far

Yako’s life was far from flat, but the sight of him replacing them all with gratitude and challenging ceramics is a word of “wow.”

It may be because people with smiles gather around him because they are practiced around the fact that they do not judge things by “liking”, “dislike”, “losing”, and “gaining”, and that people cannot live alone.

When I asked Mr. Yako what he would like to make in the future, he said that he wanted to make “a pot” a life’s work.

It took 11 years to make the vase in the photo.

“Henko” is made in the midst of the unique difficulties of porcelain that ceramics do not have. What will you see next time?

How can memory phenomena be reduced?

The difficulty of porcelain

There is a memory phenomenon in porcelain, says Yako.

It is a phenomenon that even if a flat thing is made, the outside becomes round naturally over time and bends.

Since there are individual differences in memory phenomena, the way they appear is different even if they are made at the same time. However, he said that it is a professional job to create something close to the same shape, even if it is different.

He also told me that when I made it with a machine such as a press, the memory phenomenon does not occur, so I can judge whether it is handmade or made by machine.

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Mr. Yaki is coming until July 5th at the Takumi Corner “White Wind of Hand” Yozaemon Yako and Mikiko Shirasu.

If you are concerned about Yako’s world view and Imari Arita ware’ world view, please come by all means.