Tatsuzo Shimaoka

A Japanese Living National Treasure talks about his life and work as one of his country's most celebrated potters

(from Clay Times, November 2001)
By Richard Busch

It was on a beautiful, coolish late-summer's evening in Washington, DC, that famed Japanese potter Tatsuzo Shimaoka came to town to attend the opening of his first exhibition in the nation's capital and to give a stimulating talk on his life and work.

Shimaoka is one of just 13 Japanese potters who have been officially designated a "Living National Treasure" -- a title he received in 1996, at the age of 77, in recognition particularly of his mastery of his rope-impressed inlay surface decoration technique.

The event took place September 5th, 2001 at the Japan Information and Cultural Center, located on 21st Street, just a few blocks from the White House. The program was part of JICC's Fall Cultural Event Series commemorating the 50th anniversary of the signing of the San Francisco Peace Treaty in 1951. On display was a small but dazzling selection of the master's pottery -- plates, tea bowls, boxes, jars, vases (with values ranging to more than $25,000, though none were for sale) -- and for many in attendance it was their first chance to see these unique pots "up close and personal." For this potter/writer, it was a revelation; the pieces themselves were far more striking and beautiful than any of Shimaoka's work I've seen in photographs.

Among those in attendance were Shunji Yanai, the Japanese Ambassador; Louise Cort, curator of the Freer and Sackler Galleries of Art, Smithsonian Institution; and Joan Mondale, who knew Shimaoka from the time she and her husband, Fritz Mondale, lived in Japan while Fritz was the U.S. Ambassador there. Mrs. Mondale, who played a role in bringing Shimaoka to Washington -- and an enthusiastic potter in her own right -- spoke briefly of her first visit to Mashiko, where Shimaoka lives, and of her vivid memories and deep appreciation for his work.

Following the showing of a film made in Mashiko of Shimaoka and his techniques for throwing, decorating, and firing, the master himself spoke eloquently (with translations by Ms. Cort) about his life as a potter and of his philosophy.

Born in Tokyo in 1919, he inherited the artistic instincts of his father, an artisan who made braided silk cords in a small downtown shop. One day, at the age of 19 and a freshman at the Tokyo Industrial College, he wandered into the Nihon Mingeikan (Japanese Folk Crafts Museum), which had been started by Soetsu Yanagi and several friends, including potters Kanjiro Kawai, and Shoji Hamada, and was struck by the simple, unpretentious pots and other historical items that had been made by anonymous craftspeople for everyday use. It was a turning point in his life.

"Yanagi called these items the people's craft or Mingei," explains Shimaoka, "and he believed that they represent what is truly beautiful -- not the highly refined work made by top artisans only for the wealthy few. He claimed that good craft must be convenient and comfortable to use because they are necessary every day. Mingei works must be durable, made in quantity, and affordable. Materials used must be natural and indigenous. At the basis of the Mingei philosophy lies the supposition that the craftsperson lives a healthy life, has a healthy mind, and is always sincere in the pursuit of utility."

The philosophy hit the young Shimaoka hard. "When I was lost at what to do in the future," he recalls, "Yanagi's theory was like fertile rain on barren soil. With my mind decided, I went to Mashiko to visit Hamada, an alumnus of my college, and he agreed to accept me as an apprentice after I graduated. He told me that the basis of ceramics is the wheel, and advised me to learn how to throw pots on the wheel while in school. I did as I was told."

After graduating from college, and following a stint in the Army during World War II (during which he spent time as a prisoner of war), he apprenticed with Hamada for three years. "In retrospect, those years studying under a great teacher were the basis for my career as a potter," he says. "He would tell us apprentices to leave aside all that we had studied -- as he had done when he left school -- and to start with a new slate. Handmade work, he explained, is not to be learned by intellect, but with the body. Technique is not to be taught, but to ambitiously acquire.

"This is the traditional way master artisans always treated their apprentices, and how apprentices gained good craftmanship. I now understand that that was the most effective method for acquiring potting techniques. Today I always have a few apprentices in my house, including students from abroad. I teach them just the way Hamada tought me."

Shimaoka spoke about the time after he left Hamada and set up his own kiln nearby, and of the difficulty he had during the first few years in separating his own work from the work of his teacher. Hamada would come by from time to time and admonish him for not finding his own way. But after a while he hit upon the idea of reviving the ancient method of decorating pots with rope impressions -- rubbing the surface of his still-moist pots with pieces of braided rope -- as was done during the Jomon period dating back thousands of years. At roughly the same time, he learned about the Korean method of inlaying whitish slip into the impressions. When allowed to dry, the slip on the dark clay surface was scraped away, leaving the white slip in the hollows, thereby highlighting the patterns. He called his discovery "Jomon Zogan," rope pattern inlay. He even got his father, the cord maker, to make some pieces of rope with a variety of different patterns for different effects.

"Hamada came by one day to look at what I was doing," Shimaoka recalls, "and he was pleased. He said, 'Ah, Shimaoka, what a good idea!'"

But Hamada also cautioned him not to concentrate on just the one technique for too long -- out of concern that it would grow stale and lead to monotonous stereotype. "He warned that one must always experience the happiness of creation." However, in retrospect Shimaoka noted that after more than 50 years using the technique, he has yet to fathom its depths -- that there are still many combinations of rope design and application techniques that he has yet to explore.

Today, at 82, Shimaoka continues his work with the same apparent energy and devotion to the Mingei ideals that have sustained him through the decades. He fires his five-chambered, wood-fired norobigama climbing kiln for three and half days, three times a year, producing a wide variety of items, thanks to the different temperatures and atmospheric conditions of each chamber. He is assisted by a large group of workers and apprentices -- "in the longstanding Japanese model of pottery-making as a cooperative activity," he explains -- who carry out many of the tasks, under his direction.

But he himself still gets behind the wheel -- admitting that throwing is his favorite part of the process, followed by decorating and firing -- and produces much of the work that comes out of the noborigama. (He also uses a gas-fired reduction kiln for some of his pots.) And he still decorates with his ropes and participates in the firing, especially toward the latter stages when many important decisions must be made. About his only apparent concession to his age is lower back pain, which he eases with twice-a-week massages.

And he has recently turned in his kick wheel for one that runs on electricity.

When asked about the the pottery-making process and how he thinks about it today, he explained that despite the modern notion of science allowing us to control almost everything we do, he holds onto the idea that making pottery should not be entirely controllable. "An important principle of my work is to use materials in their natural state," he says, "which means that they all have impurities that can cause problems. And the kiln is also subject to such uncontrollable elements as the vagaries of the weather and temperature fluctuations. However, these things can also play a positive role in the final effect of what I make.

"We must speak in terms of the blessings of nature or the blessings of the kiln. And by this I mean that by the state of not completely controlling it we acquire a kind of freedom we wouldn't have otherwise. We may be vulnerable to failure, but in the best results we achieve something that's bigger than our own strength."

In response to another question -- how his promotion to the status of a Living National Treasure has affected him and his relationships with people -- he said, "Since the appointment I don't think I've changed in the least bit. My intention has been not to change. But when I hear myself called a Living National Treasure, I cringe. I do my best to live with this honor and not have it affect me."

A moment later, upon reflection, he added, with a big smile, "And indeed, it has benefited me very much." Big laugh from the audience.