Hello. Even though you’re not located in a commercial district, the customers just keep coming in, don’t they?

For some reason, everyone makes the effort to come out here, and for that I’m very grateful. The customers especially seem to come when the other staff member has a day off and I’m here by myself! (laughs)

What was the basis for your idea to set up shop here?

When you think about it, dishes are something people deal with every day until they die. I’m talking about dishes in the sense of “tools for eating.” But when people hear about “dishes” and “pottery” they often shrink away and say, “I’m not too good with that kind of thing.” That’s why I wanted to make a space like this where I could introduce some really good ceramics artists to people and let them experience the works in a relaxed atmosphere.

The customers who were just in bought quite a few pieces. Do you ever have a chance to hear feedback from people after they’ve bought things from you?

Actually, I often do. I’ll get a call at nine in the morning, saying, “I just used my dishes for the first time, and I cried.” Dishes are just inanimate objects, but I think they transmit something through touch and can affect change on people.

That’s remarkable. I’ve never been so happy about a purchase that I phoned up the store at nine in the morning. Not once.

But they’re made from earth, and if someone puts their soul into their ceramic works, I think it’s possible to make something that will move a person to tears. It may be naïve, but as I’ve been working telling people about pottery, I’ve begun to believe that dishes are something that come back to human hands.

Could you explain a bit more what you mean by “come back to human hands?”

They say our bodies are made from some kind of primodial material, and food vessels are made by human hands by using a mixture of the basic elements of earth, water, and fire. I think if we can feel the soil through the dishes we use everyday, that could be a good thing. The dishes we use everyday are something to be held in the hand. If that experience of daily contact can be used to convey something important, then you’ve got something good. It’s not just dishes, but everything comes back to human hands. For example, here are some works by ceramics artist Teppei Ono. By touching his earthy works, your skin can get in touch with not theory, but something like the basis for life itself.

Do you mean that by touching the pieces people can feel a connection to planet earth?

Well, that’s taking it a bit far, but in actuality I think there’s something there that can only be explained in such a way.

OK, now I see what you mean. The pieces in the shop seem to have been quite painstakingly hand-selected. What kind of criteria do you use for choosing the works you carry?

Basically, I choose pieces that are: nothing special, real, not exaggerated, and which incorporate seamlessly with everyday life. Said more simply, I choose pieces which are not trying to make a big statement. Pieces which your own grandparents could feel comfortable using.

Dishes truly are an important component of daily life. But, it must be a lot of work to choose from the multitude of works of the many artists you represent, choosing which ones to carry in the shop.

I put a lot of value into the time I spend with the people who make the works I carry. I always visit them at their studios and eat together with them, talking not just about pottery but also talking with the other members of their families about all kinds of things. By learning about what kind of place they live in and what kind of food they eat, I’m able to understand the message they put into their works, and I’m able to tell others about their pieces in my own way.

The world needs both “people making things” and “people telling others,” so I think the role of someone like you is very important. I’m in awe of the passion you have for pottery. Where does that passionate energy come from?

In my case, for some reason I have loved pottery ever since I was a child. And I was never asked to do it by anyone, but something inside me told me to do it, and I started going around taking pictures and writing articles. I must have looked like a real idiot. Even I don’t think what I was doing was quite normal. So I think I must have been born to tell people about pottery dishes.

You must have been born to do it. Oh, I wish I could say that about myself someday. Now tell me, what kind of work did you do before you founded this shop and made it what it is today?

Actually, in addition to running this shop, I also write and publish books, and produce musical events and CDs. But previously, I was a writer who mainly did interviews. But then I got married and had a child. And I found myself thinking, once my child gets bigger, will I go back to the same writing job? And I began to think, “If I go on this way, what will I regret when I die?” That was when I decided I wanted to do work with the pottery that I had always loved. That’s when I started this gallery. But at first, I was so scattered. I had my writing work, and I loved pottery and had this shop , and I also had a book that I’d put together myself.

And now six years have passed since you started your shop, Utsuwa Shoken. How are your feelings about things now?

I’ve noticed that there is a connecting thread between all the things I work on; pottery, books, and music. It might be cheeky of me to say, but I feel I’m doing work that helps to encourage people. I’m not trying to put on airs, it’s what I’ve really noticed.

It must be your clear vision and the support of your family that has allowed you to come this far.

It’s true. I’m so grateful to my family for putting up with my self-centered ways. But I always make sure we eat together as a family. That’s very important to me. Even if I’m very busy with my work, I always make sure we all eat together. The people making these wonderful ceramic works are the same way. They don’t put everything into just making the dishes, they also value the act of eating very highly. It’s those elements of the everyday parts of life that come together to make good pots. But I think eating really is one of the most important things for us living now, and it’s not “going back to the hand” but I think that everything comes back to eating, and that’s why I want to keep on telling people about dishes.

News!

Starting May 1, 2009, “utsuwa-shoken onari NEAR” has opened. It’s four minutes walk from Kamakura Station in an old-fashioned shopping arcade on Onari street. It’s a very convenient location. Please stop by if you have a chance.

utsuwa-shoken　onari NEAR
Onari-cho 5-28, Kamakura City, Kanagawa

Closed: Thursdays

Open: 12:00 – 19:00

Tsuge kushi have become more of a traditional product these days, but in the past they were known in Japan as combs of the highest quality. There was even a song about the tsuge kushi combs of Satsuma that people used to sing in the Edo period.

Why are the tsuge kushi combs of Satsuma so famous?

There’s a species of boxwood (tsuge) called Satsuma tsuge that grows in the Ibusuki area. The best kind of boxwood is the Satsuma tsuge. As a material, it’s very dense, and the oil in the wood is retained well. It’s also very resillient. It combs through the hair very smoothly. That’s why the women of the Edo period loved them so much.

So the climate around Ibusuki helped to make it that way.

Among the boxwood that grows in Satsuma, the grain is very fine, and it’s very flexible. Around Ibusuki, the boxwood growing areas have a relatively low mean temperature. That’s why the growth is slower, and the growth rings are very narrow. This helps to produce a condensed, very dense wood. Quality-wise, imported wood can’t measure up in the least. You can tell at a glance, just by looking at the surface. It’s completely different.

They’re very expensive even now, so in the past they surely weren’t something the average person could get their hands on?

I’m sure that’s how it was. The fact that they’re a luxury product hasn’t changed even today. But really, women these days, they’ll easily spend 10,000 or even 20,000 yen in one visit to the hair salon. If you think of it that way, our combs last a lifetime. They’re really not all that expensive. (laughs)

Even so, Mr. Kita, you’ve got beautiful hair. I know that must sound strange, but…

Thank you very much. (laughs) But, I just comb it you know. I don’t do anything else.

I heard that your Kita Factory has invented a boxwood brush, and has even registered a patent. Is that right?

Yes, it’s true. One day, I started thinking about how young people use combs. Young women grip the comb in their fist. They don’t hold them like Japanese women used to. Also, our sales had started to slip, and I figured I had to try something new, and I came up with a brush made of boxwood. We brought it to market, and it sold pretty well.

So I suppose that makes the Kita Factory the birthplace of the boxwood brush.

Well, we do hold a patent, but apparently all you have to do is make a brush with a different number of bristles and there’s nothing we can do. There’s really no benefit to having a patent. (laughs) But I truly believe I was the first to come up with this idea. Thanks to the brush, our factory has made a comeback.

Were you facing a crisis at one point?

Yes, we were. I’ve experienced three boxwood comb booms since I started here, but after that, it got so bad that I couldn’t pay people’s salaries and had to let some staff go. After all, this place really is a small-town microenterprise. It was very amicable. I just said, “We’ve got no more work here, but I heard that company has something you can do.” It was very simple. (laughs)

Now, Mr. Kita, how did you wind up taking over this business?

I wasn’t the oldest son or anything, and I had no obligation to take over the business. But when I was young, I was just drifting around and my older brother called me home and made me help out with the business. At first I never intended to become a comb-maker. But while I was here, we had a boom period, and I started to enjoy the work. The next thing I knew, 42 years had passed. (laughs)

So you’re an old hand at this by now. Weren’t you ever drawn to any other trades?

Oh no, I never was. Despite my appearance, I’m pretty good with my hands, and I can do pretty much anything I set my mind to. But as things turned out, I was given this boxwood comb shop to take care of, and made it my business. I feel that’s my life, those are the cards that were dealt to me. I’m not that smart, and I didn’t go to a good school. I just did the best with what I got. I think it’s important to do that. I’m never going to win any Order of Cultural Merit with my work, and I’m never going to build any legacy either.

I see. You haven’t any legacy?

I consider the Satsuma tsuge boxwood to be my best legacy. “That comb maker, I heard he’s got lots of boxwood.” That has been the long-standing industry rumor about my place. (laughs) In other words, the wood is my legacy. If my son ever wants to take over the factory, I at least will be able to leave him a lot of boxwood.

If your son did decide to take over the business, what kind of advice would you give him?

I would never force him to take it over. But making something yourself and selling it yourself is the most honest, straightforward way of doing business, and I think it’s the best way. Just explaining things alone, it doesn’t cover it all. There’s no manual that sets it all up. You’ve got to move your own hands and explain what your body knows, and sell it. I think that’s the best way to do it.

Now finally, this is a difficult thing to ask, but do you think these combs would be alright for men to use as well? I mean, they say you’ve got to take good care of your scalp and all, right?

There’s nothing wrong with that. Other than this comb, I don’t do anything to my hair.

Firstly, could you tell me what is special about Sakurajima-yaki pottery?

It depends on the item, but there is a silver sheen in it called “ginsai” which is unique. The clay has a lot of iron and minerals in it, and when it’s fired at 1300 degrees, it develops a silver luster.

It gives a certain sense of the magic of nature, doesn’t it?

We believe that there is a certain natural energy dwelling in the material that produces the uniquely rugged yet refined look in the works.

What kind of history does Sakurajima-yaki have?

Actually, Sakurajima-yaki isn’t a style of pottery with a long history or tradition. Sakurajima itself has been around for many tens of thousands of years, so the clay itself surely has a very long history, but Sakurajima-yaki pottery was started by my father.

So, your father was a potter then, I suppose?

No. Originally, he was a local civil servant who worked in the Sakurajima town office in the tourism department. A bureaucrat. I don’t know what he was thinking, but suddenly he established a kiln. I imagine he’d gone to someplace like Ijuin, which is a place famous for Satsuma-yaki ceramics, and had some kind of revelation.

In rural areas, working as a civil servant is one of the best, most stable jobs you can get! Why did he quit?

That’s true. He never talked about it with his family, he just said, “I’ve submitted my resignation papers,” and started doing pottery. I was still just a high schooler then and I didn’t really understand. I just thought, “What on earth has he done?” He was in his late-forties and he made a big life decision. The family was too busy to object; he had us all helping out at the kiln! (laughs) Kagoshima men are all stubborn, so once he made up his mind he wouldn’t have listened to what we said anyway.

That’s an amazing story. If he was willing to make such a decision, he must have been very attracted to pottery, or a very good sense about it.

Of course my father had a certain amount of interest in Satsuma-yaki. But he was so badly coordinated, and he’d never done pottery before. He started the workshop in 1972, and it was just a constant run of errors. He’d study a bit then make something, study and make again. Over and over.

If he started the kiln up without any preparation in advance, then you must have had no income at all for quite a while.

Yes, that’s right. He just spent every day working at it, and he kept at that for two years. In other words, we went two years without an income. He had no sense of how to run a business. He did set up a store at the workshop, but he had never done that kind of business before, and the shop looked just like a house, with a gate and everything.

You operated the business as a family, isn’t that right?

Yes. My father did the firing, my sister turned the wheel, and I did the glazing. There were two other staff as well. My mother was running a fruit shop. I think that’s how we were able to stay alive . Even so, we were up to our ears in debt. The fear of the bills at the end of every month is something I can’t forget even now. But other than that, we were quite laid back. We had the attitude, “As long as we make it, it’ll sell someday.” We’d talk about how, “Pottery doesn’t have an expiry date.” So we just kept building up our stock. (laughs)

When did things finally start selling?

That was when the tourist boom happened. It was around 1976. Back then it wasn’t easy to take trips overseas. Everyone took their holidays within Japan. Miyazaki and Kagoshima were particularly popular. For honeymoons, people didn’t go to places like Hawaii, Guam, and Saipan like they do now. A lot of people came to Kyushu. So people would come to Kagoshima and visit Sakurajima, come to our shop and buy some things to take home. We started getting more and more customers like that.

In one sense, it’s quite amazing that the kiln got on track in just one generation.

We had our low points – we were taken by a wholesaler for a few million yen once, but during the bubble years in the 1980s, our stuff just flew off the shelves. Our huge parking lot was packed with cars. We sometimes ran out of things to sell. Even then, the customers wanted to buy something to take home, so they waited outside for the pieces to be fired.

They were buying fresh-baked dishes straight out of the oven!

Yes they were. They’d look inside the kiln at the pots and say, “I’ll take one of these and one of those.” When I think about it now I can hardly believe it myself.

What are your thoughts on how to proceed now?

Actually, the founder, my father, passed away last year. The economy isn’t very good now, so I can’t say we’re doing well, but the Kyushu Shinkansen bullet train service is starting in 2011. I’m hoping that will bring some more visitors to Kagoshima’s Sakurajima. Well, we already know what it’s like to hit rock bottom, so in that sense we have nothing to fear. (laughs) I hope we can continue to manage the business debt-free, and keep providing good products for our customers.

I’m sure your father would be very happy to know that the family is still carrying on his life’s work.

I think so too. But I wish I had asked him, “Why did you become a potter?” That’s one thing I still don’t know, even now. (laughs)