Hello. First of all, could you tell me about the concept behind this place, and give a simple explanation of what you do with the space?

Toshio:We sell Jomon-style clay flutes, hold festivals, events, and workshops, and operate the space as a place for people to get together.

Shizuko:We call the kind of festivals we hold, “punk kagura” where we make strange noises and bang on drums. It’s the kind of place where the neighbors look at us funny and tell us, “please stop your religious activities” and stuff. We even had the police called on us once. (laughs) Really it’s not all that, though.

I see. What do the two of you consider yourselves to be doing?

Shizuko:We’re just having fun. Some people think we’re improvisational musicians, some people think we’re festival-holders, and some think we’re colossal morons. (laughs)
Toshio:We hold fun festivals, blessing the earth, enlivening the land and the town. We’re just holding events to go with each encounter that comes along. That’s all.

So put in simple terms, you’re improvisational musicians who put on festivals, I guess? What have you been doing, and where have you been doing it?

Toshio:We’ve been to most places in the Kanto region. Sano, Kogawa, Ashikaga, Maebashi, Takasaki, Shimonita, Tochigi, Mashiko, Kasama, and Izu. Places that you can get to easily from Tokyo but aren’t really visible. We called it the Autonomous Republic of Kanto and took our Kagura Entertainer’s Troupe and did a performance tour.

Shizuko:We go around to each place and put on a festival, and we’re really good at taking the energy level through the roof. (laughs) At first, we didn’t know how to bring that high energy level back down and it was really tough. Everyone would get into a festival mood and we’d wind up in a psychological state that made it hard to return to everyday life. (laughs)

No matter what scale you are working in, going to a place where you don’t know anyone and organizing a festival, going in as a non-local and getting the locals involved must be a huge task. There are issues of leadership, money problems, and I imagine a lot more as well. How do you pull off such a monumental feat? How have you managed to make this your livelihood?

Shizuko:I think in some ways it’s easier to be accepted by people because we’re not locals. Also, if we enjoy each moment, like, “As long as we’re having fun now, what’s the problem?” then I think things just come together naturally. With money too, someone always comes along in the nick of time to help us scrape through. Someone will bring vegetables, or rice, or dishes, and thanks to these miracles we’ve managed to keep on living, enjoying our lifestyle of peace and freedom.

Toshio:If we get everyone together and put on a meal, we use rice and vegetables that the local farmers have grown, we use locally crafted dishes to serve the food, local writers and artists come, people who are really good at cooking, people who roast coffee, we get everyone to participate and that’s how we hold our events. There are so many amazing intellectuals and craftspeople in the countryside, but despite living in the same area, they aren’t connected to each other. We go to places with people like that, and we go slowly at first, listening politely to what people say. Then, when it’s time to do it, we suddenly pull everyone into our world and get them all to play the parts we’ve assigned. (laughs) Then, just as everything is starting to get exciting, the festival ends. We’ve been doing that over and over.

Shizuko:Toshi-chan has given lectures in front of those intellectuals, and I’ve performed music in front of those hidden genius musicians. From their perspective, we’re huge idiots. (laughs) But that’s alright. I think they must feel as though we outsiders have come in and done what they can’t do themselves. But, by putting them up on center stage, everyone’s blood starts flowing and they get a lot of their energy back. We want to help this happen and take great care in each event we put on.

Toshio:The two of us want to help people become aware of the un-heard, the un-seen, the air and the atmosphere. We want to try to be a catalyst for that.

I see. Now that I’ve heard your story, I see how deep your work is. Now, what kind of dream or vision do you have for the future?

Shizuko:My job is to connect the past to the future by enjoying the now and living in the now through festivals and music.

Toshio:I want to do things that we can do as Japanese people. We could bring our style of festivals from Japan over to Asia, and on to the land of Africa.

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

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)