Fukumori-gama is the lone holdout for tradition in this valley with a half-dozen-plus potters under the direction of the kiln’s master. A close look at the majority of the lidded pots put out by the many villagers who pot for their livelihood shows moulding and jigging are rampant. Only the Fukumori workshop creates its whole line on the potter’s wheel. The similarity of most donabe coming out of the village is offset by the lovely forms and hand-finished fillips given works by the Fukumori potters.
The young master of the kiln is an expert cook. His personal conviction is that fine cooking ware adds considerably to the art of good cookery. It won’t make poorly prepared food tasty but it will heighten the pleasure of eating any well-made meal. So his kiln regularly produces variations on the standard donabe. Shapes and glazes custom-crafted to form an assortment of cooking vessels that fit contemporary cookery: high-sided casseroles, low teppan-yaki dishes with roomy lids, shallow-lidded pans and deep bowls with wooden covers. Decorations are minimal and glazes used tend to earthy hues.
Clays and glazes are locally collected and refined at Fukumori-gama. The kiln master, heir to several centuries potting heritage, is trying to continue the better aspects of his craft while changing those portions that bear improvement. Form and glazing are two areas that constantly need updating. Not everything left to the present from days long past is as functional now as it once was. Improvements fostered by this kiln, while maintaining traditions of craftsmanship and function, bring this mingei pottery into active touch with the 20th century.
| 23 | SHIGA |
| HATTA-YAKI | |
SShiga-ken skirts the shore of Lake Biwa and melts into mountains that literally cover the whole of the Kii Peninsula. Hatta is a quiet little village of level paddies where one can easily find the kiln of Juji Miyaji. Hatta-gama (fired jointly with a nephew) sidles up the hillside above his home, the fire pits handily convenient to the overhanging porch of his aged workshop.
The illustrated examples demonstrate the full range of wares made there. All sizes of both TOKKURI and KATA-KUCHI are made, each with the distinctive plum flower pattern in iron underglaze.
Tokkuri (sake warming and serving bottles) are the most interesting ware he creates mostly not for the liquid it will someday hold but for the unusual potting manner used to form each one. Throwing off the hump as do the majority of the Japanese potters, Miyaji-san throws countless upper halves slicing each from the spinning clay mass when it reaches the right size. When he has handy stock of these “uppers” on a rack board, he begins to fashion lower halves off the same spinning hump of local clay.
Using a measuring device aptly termed a “tombo” or dragonfly, he forms a cylinder that exactly echoes the “uppers” diameter. That accomplished, the wheel is stopped while an “upper” is deftly fitted to a “lower.” The wheel is slowly started once more while an egote is thrust through the neck of the vessel to aid in sealing the two parts together. Outside fingertip pressure and inner pressure from the forming tool’s knob binds the seam and makes the two cylindrical halves one.
String-sliced from the wheel and set onto a drying rack, it is given a spout-forming pinch before curing for a day or so. Bottoms are then trimmed and the next steps are bisque firing, underglaze decoration, overglazing with a translucent white and final firing. Voila, rows of red-topped raw-glazed sake-warmers become rust-capped and flower bedecked warm grey.
Katakuchi (used to measure liquids) are made in single throws with the spout taking a little extra work. No rusty caps but plenty of flowers — the same sort as have been decorating these mingei ceramics for the past three centuries.
Miyaji-san died shortly after this was first written (1978). Hatta-yaki is no-longer made in this manner although a neighboring village kiln is recreating the style.
| 24 | FUKUI |
| KAMA & NIGIRI-BASAMI | |
First-time residents in this land of contradictions soon become addicted to learning about such “reverse” logic wherever it is applied. Tools create a heaven of discovery with saws that pull instead of push and planes that do likewise. If one’s view extends to field tools, you must come to grips with scythes that pull instead of sweep when they slice and clippers that squeeze instead of cut with fulcrum leverage like Western scissors do. Why? Your guess is as good as mine. Instead, one (if you intend to live here for any time) comes to grips with the movements of these implements or you buy Western imports more familiar in shape but outrageous in price.
The hand scythe shown is a grass cutter. One hardly ever sees a reel-type mower, although they are available. Grass lawns are hardly a widespread phenomenon and small border trimming and weeding is done with this hand cutter. That means you must be stooping to ground level to work it and work is just exactly what it is. Hard work!
Blades come in a variety of curves with the longer ones used primarily for weed control while shorter shanked types are used to remove not just the greenery but also its root system. Those used harvesting the fall bounty of rice are notched along the cutting edge much like the wavy slicing edge of an expensive bread knife.
Scissors are found in an equal range of sizes. Huge clippers fashioned in exactly the same way as this tiny pair are used for chopping on farms. Everything from vegetable greens to be discarded or fed to domestic animals to trimming hooves. Inside one is sure to find several pairs including a sewing basket that wouldn’t be complete without a sharp pair of hasami.
Fukui-ken is known throughout the nation for production of these fine iron tools. Hand-forging is nearly a forgotten art elsewhere but pockets of activity still exist in this mountainous prefecture fronting the Japan Sea. The finest blades are signed with the signature markings of the maker both on the blades and on the handle. Scissors too are often etched with the maker’s trademark. Little of the iron ore used to create these blades is mined in Japan any longer, but the workmanship and pride imbued in each is easily evident in the manner in which they are both displayed and cared for, from shop to home — right where mingei has its roots.
| 25 | KYOTO |
| SENSU | |
One runs into mention of fans on almost every other page of ancient poetry collections and court-life chronicals. A recounting of the story of the invention of SENSU may be of interest (even if it has to be believed with more than two or three grains of salt).
The widow of Atsumori Taira (son of Kiyomori, the central character in The Tales of the Heike) retired to a rural Kyoto temple to grieve and mourn her loss. The temple was Mieido where, as a nun, she long resided practising her devotions and trying to better the lot of her fated young husband. While in residence, the abbot of the temple fell ill with a raging fever. Atsumori’s widow ministered to his sickness and with a folded paper, she tried to cool his fevered head. Days of fanning the sick man whilst muttering incantations seemed to effect a cure and the recovered abbot was very grateful.
The fan-shaped simply-folded paper she used to cure his illness was soon turned into the stick-supported fan one sees so often today and the priests at Mieido were/are thought to be especially adept at making these fans. Even today, one finds many shops dealing in fans named “Mieido” in luck-bearing appreciation of the originating temple.
The convenience of folding fans makes them a favorite with both sexes during the humid summer months. A good light-weight folding fan (of suitable design, of course) is worth its salt (leftover from believing the invention story) on a hot train ride or anywhere where elbow room is to be had.
Folding fans are used in traditional theater in a variety of ways. Some are accessories for dancing taking on the guise of letters to be read, cups brimful with sake to be drunk and partitions to be hid behind. Such use of fans takes long hours of practice but when one sees such