Summer 2019, on the way to the end of the world....
Why Japan ?
It was by chance that I found myself in Japan in the summer of 2019 . Nathalie, my neighbor at the Créamik school, said to me one morning in June: say Véro, would you like to replace me for a month's training with a Japanese master potter ? OH !
Nathalie had to return home to French Polynesia and prioritized this return to her family. I sent my application to the Explore Japanese Ceramics organization, and I was accepted. This is how this adventure began.
2 months later, I arrived there, alone, with my backpack and my suitcase . Was I ready for such a plunge into the unknown? Was I ready to lose all my Western bearings ? Of course not , I wasn't expecting anything because I had everything to discover..
Tokyo, what next ?
A few days in Tokyo to absorb a little jet lag and visit as much as possible of this fascinating metropolis and I'm off to a great start (it's very, very hot in the summer in the southwest of Japan . Humidex index crazy!)
Exciting city in which I should have planned to stay longer... But I took advantage of every second, starting with getting to know the Tokyo subway , and the food . A 6-hour trip on the Shinkansen , I spend on buying the ticket from a ticket agent who doesn't speak English, on the challenge of arriving on the right platform of this legendary train , on the connections to arrive at the right port ..
I no longer know how to speak, no longer read, no longer know my way around, everything is written in Japanese, my alphabet has been shattered . The Japanese have this extraordinary thing: as soon as they see a Westerner with their nose on a map or in the air on the signs, they spontaneously come to help as long as they speak English . And it's actually not so common in the land of the rising sun to speak English fluently. But kindness is everywhere.
I arrive in Seto , in Aichi prefecture, near Nagoya at the end of the day. Everything is still so different, more exotic, more rural even with its more than 100,000 inhabitants it is such a vast village. Seto is the temple of ceramics in Japan, with the town of Tajimi its neighbor.
I discovered an extraordinary museum: the Seto-Gura Plaza traces the history of this ancestral art, here on Japanese lands, in the heart of this magical country.
At the Kasen workshop
Hiroshige Kato, the master potter, welcomes us, the 4 new trainees , from Australia , San Francisco , Luxembourg and me from France . We are staying on the first floor of the workshop, and this welcome is friendly and warm, our master is very smiling and invites us to visit the place. Here I am, at the heart of this journey to the end of the world , tomorrow morning we put our hands in the clay ...
What a change of scenery there too ! The methods , the mixing , the tools , the clay itself are different , when I talk about benchmarks exploding, again it's a plunge into the void. But my long training at Séné allows me to quickly get my bearings again. Clay is clay, so come on, and my hands are adapting to shaping pieces by the block . The image speaks for itself. Clod after clod, lesson after lesson from our master, the pieces take shape under my fingers and the kneading into sunflowers becomes less difficult . Mixing 2 kg of clay in one go is surprising and sporty. This step teaches the usefulness of effective actions .
And who would have believed it? Our teacher, very active on Saturday evenings in a rock group , took his guitar one evening and sang the Beatles to us. So unexpected! But that makes sense. The boys in the wind have a strong anchor in Japan, in particular John Lennon with Yoko Ono. He plays us the cult Let it be, Imagine (could I imagine that!), Still my guitar and more, sung here in the workshop, after dinner... What emotion! All these shares are very meaningful, and I see myself as a little girl at 11 years old learning English in 6th grade and a fan of translating and singing Beatles songs over and over. Here, at the end of the world, I felt that I I was in the right place.
Theme of my training: The Tea Ceremony
I had chosen the option 'Make your utensils for the Tea Ceremony' for this trip because I had a real desire to immerse myself in the culture , try to understand the fundamentals , the meaning , the philosophy , the wisdom Far Eastern, this quest that I had come to encounter, the symbolism of this art of Tea in Japan . So I learned to turn traditional bowls among other pieces, learned to decorate in the pure ancestral imprint , these ceramics that I turned there have a special place in my heart . I've made over 40!
It is in the Portfolio tab that you will discover these original decorations in Oribe (designs with iron carbonate and dark green enamel on crackle) and in Ofuke ( blue designs with Cobalt carbonate and transparent glaze).
What an extraordinary adventure ! And intensive work, Japanese style , no weekends, on Sundays we applied our decorations for cooking on Monday. With a few exceptions for the Annual Nagoya Festival and the Festival which takes place in September in Seto, in honor of all the ceramic artisans of the city. Here's a little more about this fabulous weekend:
The Seto Ceramics Festival
An incredible potters' market which attracts 300,000 visitors each year , it makes you wonder, doesn't it? An unforgettable 2-day event where our master potter Hiro exhibits and makes his best sale of the year. The evening is also a party , the pop-up restaurants offer all kinds of traditional dishes. Fireworks in the shape of smileys! Hiro then took us to discover the Kamagami Shinto temple, a flight of steps (a big flight, it's very high!) from the heart of the city. This temple, at night , with its lanterns , its stone basin for the ritual of purification using long-handled ladles which are used according to a very precise code , was fascinating. The world of Japan is extraordinarily calming.
The Tea Ceremony
And then came the day of the Tea Ceremony. What an adventure this bonus... Our master told us: now that you have made your traditional tea bowls , I will make an appointment for your training in the Tea Ceremony with the Tea Master and you will practice this art, we will be your guests .
To learn the gestures it was for the Australian student and me with the aim of offering tea to our guests who were Hiro and the 2 other students.
Learning traditional gestures is a very serious matter . On the other hand, the tea master did not speak a word of English. Oh oh..
Do you practice mimicry? No of course not every day and me neither. But that day, we imitated, learned, reproduced what the master taught us , we served matcha tea in our bowls turned in the workshop. Our master Hiro explained to us the meaning of this moment suspended in time: the bare room, no furniture, just the tatami and in a corner the samovar , the pot of precious matcha tea , the long-handled jigger , the ladle , the bamboo whisk ... He explained to us the summer bowl to refresh the tea, the winter bowl to warm the hands , the seasonality of the Ceremony from October to March since the samovar warms a room without heating . He explained to us the philosophy of the moment, of sharing , of these coded gestures which come from another time but which are still alive today.
The Kimono
You will not fail to see in the photos that we are in traditional clothing. No less than 3 women came to dress us in kimono to respect custom, it would not have made sense to serve the ceremony in jeans / t-shirt. These 3 women, none of whom spoke English, suggested colors of kimono, with meaning, such a more pastel color for Dash, a young woman of 23, and such a brighter color for me, a mature woman. This moment was also powerful, they took the time to dress us, so attentive, so precise, so caring. Even today I still can't believe that moment.
The final word ..
A few days after this ceremony, the pieces were packed to be taken away and shipped. I had my backpack full of them... and a box of 40 more of my pieces arrived at home one fine day in December . With them all the magic of this trip, I pinched myself, yes it was true..
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