Momoyama Revived: Shino and Oribe Work by Toshisada WAKAO

September 16th to Oct. 11th , 2003

In potters, longevity appears to be a plus. The celebrated Rosajin started out in life as a sign maker and did not focus on ceramic making until he was in his fifties. Not until his seventies did he reach his creative pinnacles: his famous Oribe Manaitazara (rectangular plate), Hassun (Shino square plate with susuki - pampas grass design), and Bizen Hanaire.
 
At 70, ceramics elder Toshisada WAKAO  is arguably reaching his pinnacle now, and Dai Ichi Arts is pleased to present his work in a one-man show September 16 to Oct. 11, 2003. Wakao has long commanded interest. He was included in the Japan Society's seminal exhibition Modern Japanese Ceramics in American Collections in 1993 and in Rupert Faulkner's influential Japanese Studio Crafts: Tradition and the Avant-Garde in 1995. His work is represented in the collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, and the Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C., and he has garnered a long list of prestigious Japanese awards and shows. Today, his work is fully matured... ripe. He is acknowledged as a holder of Intangible Cultural Property. Dai Ichi Arts will show a dozen or more works, among them two impressive Manaitazara measuring at 37 inches in length, two Oribe plates, and his signature tea bowl with camellia design.

Wakao was born to a family of potters in 1933 in Tajimi City, Gifu Prefecture, a center for Shino ware both in the Momoyama period (1573-1615) and in modern times. By 1948 he had joined his father's workshop, and was friends with Osamu SUZUKI. Gradually he developed novel techniques for creating the striking Rimpa style decoration that is his hallmark. The painstaking process is described by Rupert Faulkner as an elaboration upon traditional Nezumi-shino or Gray-shino wares, which he describes as a relatively unusual product made at only a small number of Momoyama period kilns. Faulkner writes that the original technique involved the application of iron slip over a white stoneware body and the subsequent cutting away of areas of the slip coating to reveal the underlying clay. When covered in Shino glaze and fired, the revealed areas would show white and the areas coated in iron slip would show gray. Where the glaze was thin the gray tended towards red. Wakao's innovation was to develop this basic technique into a highly-sophisticated form of resist decoration through the use of liquid latex, which enables him to achieve a crispness and an intricacy and clarity of line that would not be possible through more traditional means.

This clear, formal decoration nevertheless retains the eloquent sweep and seemingly casual gracefulness of the classical Rimpa style. It also enables him to inject narrative, or at least literary suggestion, into his works. Often a coupling of two works adds to the meaning. Take, for instance, two manaitazara which will be exhibited at Dai Ichi. One is entitled Ama no gawa or Milky Way (image 3) and features a silver moon emerging from a ground of twinkling stars in a dark sky. Clouds fade away in the distance. Another titled Zansetsu or Thaw, Melting Snow  depicts moonlight washing through a forest of tree trunks and heavy snow melting in patches on the ground, with black soil peeking through here and there. Wakao sees them as making a good pair, since, as he remarked, "one is for heaven, and the other is for earth". This lyrical, narrative quality of Wakao's work is one of its most compelling aspects, the other being the sheer perfection of his technique. 

Wakao's hobbies are painting and photography. They keep his eye sharp and sensitive and his skills finely honed. For him, a ceramic form is like a canvas... he paints on it with great creativity and freedom. His Shino bowls evoke the four seasons, one decorated with a white heron and lotus leaf , another with a branch of plum in bud, yet another with flock of birds flying over wild grasses . He uses the green Oribe glaze to great advantage as two Oribe plates   that will be on view at Dai Ichi show. One boasts deep pooling green glaze against a jazzy vertical pattern. The other plate is two-thirds covered in green glaze with one third left as bare, creamy clay, naked except for an expertly rendered moon in iron slip.
Firing is critical to Wakao's process. Using a special kiln, he fires his work for 120 hours, the first two-thirds of that time using gas as the fuel, the final third using wood. He fires 3-4 times a year, which enables him to produce about 100-150 pieces annually. Also critical is his clay, which he mixes from 4-5 kinds that he collected twenty years ago.