INNOVATIVE CERAMIC ARTIST

No. 01

How ceramics taught me who I am

From a young age, I struggled with the fact that I had no real dream. While friends spoke of who they wanted to become, I carried a quiet emptiness — a sense that I might never become anyone in particular. At twenty-five, on a trip, I joined a casual ceramic workshop. The moment I touched the clay was like being struck by lightning: "this is it." I bought a sketchbook and a pen, and hitchhiked to Gifu. There, I heard the saying: "Ceramic artists hit a wall after five years." The struggle to sell, the production challenges that come after success, the exhaustion that erodes creativity. Even so, I wanted to try — to find a place where I could live fully through this material, and bring something new into the world.

No. 02

In Gifu, on the soil of Mino-yaki

Toki, my home in Gifu, produces more ceramics than anywhere in Japan. Mino-yaki has nurtured the largest number of Living National Treasures, with craftsmen and factories preserving tradition together. But the region is in crisis — pressured by cheap mass-production, losing techniques as successors disappear, and facing depletion of the very clay that defines it (some estimates give it ten years). Without action, the Mino-yaki I fell for could be lost. I believe the path forward lies in continuing to take risks while honoring what tradition has built.

No. 03

"Compounding" — the core of my practice

Through ceramic practice, the word "compounding" has become my identity. Glaze formulation involves combining materials in 0.001-gram increments and adjusting firing programs by 1°C — meticulous work. But meticulousness alone never reaches the true beauty of glaze. What matters more is repetition without fear of failure, and the moments of surprise — those "wow" instants — that emerge from sheer volume of trials. Self-taught, trial and error has been my source of growth. The magic of glaze: powdery monochrome going into the kiln, alive with vivid color when it comes out. Sometimes a beauty appears that exceeds anything I imagined — and that astonishment is what holds me to this craft. I think of ceramics as "supernatural artifacts": made by human hands trying to control nature, while never fully succeeding. That residue of chance is what enchants both the maker and the user.

No. 04

HINOMIYA and G-E-N — two challenges

In 2022, I launched HINOMIYA — "a new form of Mino-yaki connecting artist and industry." Its premise: re-examining mass-production techniques from an artist's viewpoint, and reinterpreting them as design methods. Working with craftsmen and factories, fusing traditional skill with contemporary sensibility, HINOMIYA elevates production techniques into refined design and finds fresh possibilities in Mino-yaki. In 2023 came G-E-N, a project bridging artists and industry to bring new value to the region. Its themes: "the origin and root of things," "the individuals composing a whole," "the act of creation." A hybrid brand where Mino-yaki's mass-production techniques are compounded with each artist's identity, where creativity and function react chemically. G-E-N adds artist decoration to the bisqueware bodies traditionally used in Mino-yaki — a new shape of Mino where function and aesthetics coexist. HINOMIYA and G-E-N together symbolize value born when artist and industry take each other's hands.

No. 05

Ceramics, connecting futures

Ceramics taught me who I am. Not only by giving form to clay, but by compounding me — with environments, with people. Now I want to use this material to build futures for others. Through HINOMIYA and G-E-N, I aim to fuse Mino-yaki's tradition with innovation, and weave a new story.