Tomimoto kenkichi biography sample writing

A towering figure in the postwar Kyoto ceramics world, Tomimoto Kenkichi — was a charismatic teacher at the Kyoto Fine Arts College for fifteen years. As a master of decorated porcelain using platinum-blended silver enamel, Tomimoto was designated a Living National Treasure in Tomimoto explained his motivation in a brochure issued by one of the workshops:.

The essence of craft work is to be made inexpensively, so that it can be used by as many people as possible. I never forget this when I am making pottery. But I alone am incapable of making sufficient numbers.

This essay explores examples of modern and contemporary Japanese ceramics in the Miller collection that, through engagements with fire, tactile manipulation.

Even though I dispatch them at reasonable prices, they only reach the hands of a few people. As they move through the market, their unauthorized prices rise. On this occasion the Yasaka Kogei workshop has enabled me to accomplish what I have long dreamed of. Its potters deftly and faithfully reproduce my prototypes in quantity, making products that are cheap and pleasant to use, but that do not lose the beauty of handmade things.

Back in Tokyo, he attended a garden party at which he tried decorating Raku pottery and met another participant who was experiencing clay for the first time, the British artist Bernard Leach; they became fast friends. Tomimoto returned to his family home in Nara and set up a Morris-inspired workshop for crafts. As he trained himself to make pottery, he began visiting long-standing ceramic production centers around Japan, decorating local forms with his original designs.

In an extreme case, at one Kyoto workshop he painted the same motif on three thousand small plates. In , the same year he began teaching, he collaborated for the first time with a Kyoto workshop to make affordable everyday tableware. Japanese designers also sought to bring good design to a popular market at home. Soy sauce bottles, covered jars for pickles, and chopstick rests appear on every Japanese table.