Takeshi Satomi
After graduating from a pottery college, he went to New Zealand for training before joining Shuzangama Kiln in earnest.
He uses Koishiwara clay for wheel-thrown pottery, and they work with the clay daily to create pottery that fits in with modern lifestyles and is a vessel that will accompany you in your daily life.
He continues to make pottery so that the expression of the glaze, Shuzan blue, inherited from his predecessors, will be overlaid with the sensibility of the times.
With his pottery partner, he is expanding the range of expression of the indigo glaze and creating works that remind us of the blue of the deep sea or the Milky Way hanging in the night sky.
Koishiwara Pottery has spun off a 400-year tradition
In 1975, Koishiwara Pottery was the first ceramic ware to be designated as a traditional craft as it is a daily life product that brings affluence and enrichment to people's lives. Today, Koishiwara Pottery continues to pursue the "beauty of pottery used in daily life" and is building a new history on top of the tradition.
Shuzan blue was born in 1975.
Over the past 50 years, Shuzan blue has been passed down from Shuji the first generation to Shigenobu and now to the third generation, Takeshi.
In the midst of the spread of the folk art movement, Muneyoshi Yanagi, Bernard Leach, and others visited Koishiwara Pottery, where they came into contact with techniques such as hopping planes, brush marks, and nagashigake, and praised it as "the ultimate in beauty of use", Shuji, the first generation began to produce Koishiwara Pottery.
In 1974, he opened the Shuzangama Kiln and pursued the unique expression of glaze.
After several years of groping in the dark, he found that the blue expression was born on the vessels he had unloaded from the kiln.
Shuji was surprised and delighted, and his pursuit of the indigo glaze, which came about by chance, laid the foundation for Shuzan blue.
1975 Birth
1994 Entered Saga Ceramic College, Arita, Saga Prefecture, Japan. After graduating from the same college, studied under his father Shigenobu.
1998 Selected for the Prefectural Exhibition (and twice more since then)
1999 Studied ceramics in Nelson, New Zealand.
2003 West Japan Ceramic Art Exhibition, Second Division, Beauty of Use Section, Awarded Excellence Prize.
2007 Awarded the Ogawa Tetsuo Prize at the Amakusa Ceramics Exhibition.
2011 West Japan Ceramic Art Exhibition, Second Division, Beauty of Use Section, Awarded Excellence Prize.
2015 West Japan Ceramic Art Exhibition Prize, Honorable Mention.