Kasama-yaki – The Pottery Town With No Fixed Style
Table of contents
Most Japanese kiln names are a promise. Anyone who hears Bizen thinks of unglazed, rust-red stoneware; anyone who hears Kutani thinks of luminous painted decoration. With Kasama-yaki, this promise comes to nothing – and that is not a weakness but the very heart of the matter. In the city of Kasama in Ibaraki Prefecture, roughly a hundred kilometers northeast of Tokyo, about three hundred potters work side by side today, and hardly two of them make the same thing. Anyone walking through the workshop streets there will find roughly fired storage jars next to smoothly glazed cups, rustic ash deposits next to strictly drawn decoration. Kasama is not a style. Kasama is a place where ceramics are made.
What Is Kasama Ware?
Kasama ware (笠間焼) is a Japanese stoneware ceramic from the city of Kasama in Ibaraki Prefecture, some hundred kilometers northeast of Tokyo. It emerged during the An'ei era (1772–1781) and is considered the oldest ceramic-producing place of the Kantō region, that is, the greater area around today's capital. It is made from an iron-rich, exceptionally plastic clay derived from weathered granite, which fires unglazed to warm shades of red and dark brown. For nearly two centuries, Kasama produced mainly everyday and storage vessels; only after the Second World War did the place open up to free studio pottery. Unlike most Japanese kiln traditions, Kasama ware therefore has no binding stylistic canon – neither a form nor a glaze is prescribed. In 1992, Kasama ware was recognized by the Japanese state as Dentōteki Kōgeihin (traditional craft).
A Potter from Shigaraki and a Village Headman
Tradition traces the beginning back to two men. Kuno Han'emon Michinobu, Nanushi (village headman) of the village of Hakoda in what was then Hitachi Province, had a kiln built in the An'ei era and learned the craft from a potter from Shigaraki, whose name is recorded in the sources as Chōemon or alternatively Chōzaemon. The ware of this first kiln was initially called Hakoda-yaki after the village; Japanese accounts name the Shishido-yaki of Yamaguchi Kanbei as a second root. That it was specifically a specialist from Shigaraki who provided the impetus explains a good deal about early Kasama ware: heavy, high-fired storage vessels made of coarse, iron-rich clay, conceived entirely for practical use. The Kasama domain soon took the kilns under its protection; in 1861, Lord Makino Sadanao designated six workshops as officially sponsored Shihō-gama (prescribed kilns). The Japanese register of traditional crafts confirms this origin: Kasama-yaki, it states, goes back to craftsmen in Hakoda who fired under the guidance of Shigaraki potters, and enjoyed the domain's protection until the domain's dissolution in the Meiji era. The Japanese register of traditional crafts confirms this origin: Kasama-yaki, it states, goes back to craftsmen in Hakoda who fired under the guidance of Shigaraki potters, and enjoyed the domain's protection until the domain's dissolution in the Meiji era.
Storage Vessels for the Millions-Strong City of Edo
Kasama's real asset was its location. Edo, later Tokyo, was among the largest cities in the world during the 18th and 19th centuries, and this city needed vessels: kame (storage jars) for miso, soy sauce, and pickled vegetables, suribachi (grinding bowls) with a ribbed inner wall, dobin (teapots) for daily use. Kasama supplied this plain, sturdy ware in large quantities. The Meiji period brought a boost: in 1869, the merchant Tanaka Yūzaburō took over the kiln of the Sekine family, distributed the ware under the name Kasama-yaki via the port of Yokohama, and made the name known beyond the region. In 1877, a tea jar from Kasama was awarded first prize at the Domestic Industrial Exhibition. A second sales channel ran through the Kasama Inari Shrine, one of the three great Inari shrines of Japan, where pilgrims took the ceramics home as souvenirs. How long this profile held is documented by the Japanese register of traditional crafts: until roughly the 1940s, Kasama produced mainly kitchenware such as bottles and grinding bowls; only afterward did tableware, vases, and decorative objects come to the fore. How long this profile held is documented by the Japanese register of traditional crafts: until roughly the 1940s, Kasama produced mainly kitchenware such as bottles and grinding bowls; only afterward did tableware, vases, and decorative objects come to the fore.
What the Soil Between Kasama and Mount Tsukuba Yields
The raw material for Kasama ware comes from the weathered granite that forms the hills between Kasama and Mount Tsukuba. This decomposition produces Gairome clay, literally "frog-eye clay" – named after the embedded quartz grains that, when the clay is moist, look out from the mass like tiny eyes. This clay is unusually plastic and can be drawn out wide and thin on the wheel, which made it almost ideal for large storage vessels. Above all, though, it contains a great deal of iron. This causes the body to fire out reddish-brown to dark without glaze, and it means that pale glazes applied over it never appear entirely pure, but are tinted from below. This warmth arising from the material itself is one of the reasons why pieces from Kasama seem related to one another, even though their manner of making can be entirely different.
From Kaki Glaze to Everything Imaginable
In the Edo period, potters in Kasama worked primarily with Kaki-yū, the "kaki glaze," named after the reddish-brown fruit of the kaki plum: an iron-bearing rust red that sits rich and calm over the dark body. In the Meiji period, Ame-yū, the amber "caramel glaze," was added, along with blue glazes. What remains characteristic to this day is less a particular hue than a way of working: glazes are layered over one another, poured in bands, or allowed to run over the shoulder of the vessel, so that the edges flow into each other and unpredictable transitions arise during firing. Those who appreciate the quiet, irregular character of wabi-sabi ceramics will find it here more in these accidents of glaze application than in a deliberately roughened form. Today's workshops have the entire spectrum open to them – from ash glaze to clearly colored industrial glaze.
Kasama and Mashiko – Two Places, One Story
About twenty kilometers to the northwest, already in Tochigi Prefecture, lies Mashiko, the better-known neighbor. The two places are directly connected: Ōtsuka Keizaburō (1828–1876) learned pottery as a young man at the Kuno kiln in Kasama and built the first kiln in Mashiko in 1853 – supported by Tanaka Chōhei, a Kasama potter he knew from there. What was first fired in Mashiko were the same things: teapots, grinding bowls, and jars for the needs of the capital. Mashiko later became famous through the Mingei movement around Hamada Shōji, while Kasama went its own way. In 2020, the Japanese authorities designated both places jointly as Nihon Isan (Japan Heritage) under the title "Kasamashiko" and expressly described them as sister regions.
The Break After 1945
For a place that lived on storage vessels, the postwar period was a catastrophe. Plastic containers, refrigerators, and changed household habits caused demand for heavy miso jars and grinding bowls to collapse within a few years; the workshops fell into an existential crisis. The answer did not come from a single potter's family, but from outside: in 1950, at the request of the industry, Ibaraki Prefecture established a state ceramics institute that tested processes, examined recipes, and trained the next generation. In 1956, eight workshops joined together to form the Kasama Ceramics Cooperative. Together, both developments shifted the focus away from anonymous mass-produced articles toward pieces that bear an individual signature style – a transition that many kiln sites with a longer tradition never carried out so radically.
How a craft town became an open pottery town
In the 1960s, this reorientation coincided with the Mingei boom, which brought young people to pottery in large numbers. Kasama responded with something Japanese kiln towns rarely do: it opened up. The town established an artists' village, a ceramics settlement in 1963 and a potters' settlement in 1972, and actively recruited newcomers. Anyone who wanted to come was allowed to come – regardless of which family they came from, where they had trained, and in what style they wanted to work. Elsewhere, belonging to a pottery lineage determines who belongs; in Kasama, it did not. Today, around three hundred ceramicists and workshops work here, and the vast majority of businesses are run by individual artists rather than by long-established kiln families.
A Priest, a Temple Kiln, a National Treasure
How far this openness extends is shown by the most famous potter's biography of the place. Matsui Kōsei (1927–2003) was born in Nagano Prefecture, came to Kasama as a clergyman, and took over the leadership of the Gessōji temple in 1957. Only in 1960 did he build himself a kiln on the temple grounds and begin devoting himself to a technique that hardly anyone in Japan practiced anymore at the time: Neriage, the layering and twisting of differently colored clays into patterns that do not lie on the surface but run through the entire wall thickness. In 1993 he was recognized for this as Ningen Kokuhō, a "Living National Treasure." A temple priest who had moved to the area, without a family of potters behind him, who became Kasama's most famous ceramicist – a more fitting illustration of this place's character would be hard to find.
The Pottery Festival in the Art Forest
Anyone who wants to see Kasama in its full breadth comes to the Himatsuri, the "Fire Festival" of ceramics. It began in 1982 as a small experiment: 36 workshops displayed their wares on a vacant lot in the artists' village around self-built field kilns, modeled on American art fairs. Today, during Golden Week, from April 29 to May 5, the market fills the festival grounds in Kasama's Art Forest Park; around two hundred workshops and individual potters sell there directly, without intermediaries. For visitors, this is perhaps the most honest way to understand the place: you stand in front of two hundred stalls and see at a glance that there is no single Kasama style. In the same park, the Ibaraki Prefectural Ceramic Art Museum shows modern Japanese ceramics.
What to Look for When Judging a Piece Without a Stylistic Canon
Because no stylistic canon takes over the classification with Kasama ware, the focus shifts from the label of origin to the individual object – and that is a good measure for Japanese ceramics in general. Pick up a vessel and pay attention to how the weight is distributed: a piece thrown on the wheel becomes thinner toward the rim, while a cast piece remains the same thickness throughout. Look at the unglazed ring on which the vessel stands; there the bare shard reveals itself, with its coloring and the trace of the trimming knife. And look for the spots where the glaze runs thinner or collects in a hollow. Anyone seeking handcrafted Japanese ceramics as a unique work will find more reliable clues in these three details than in any kiln name.
From Storage Jar to Handwriting
For nearly two centuries, Kasama was a place that produced things no one looked at: jars in which miso aged, bowls in which sesame was ground. That this could grow into a place for very personal, free ceramics was due not least to the fact that no one there had a style to defend. This very attitude – the piece matters, not the label – also shapes the selection at densho.de: handcrafted chawan (tea bowls), guinomi (sake cups), tokkuri (sake bottles), and vases from various Japanese kiln regions, each piece individually sourced from Japan and shaped by a human hand. Anyone who wants to buy Japanese ceramics should therefore first hold a vessel in their hands and only afterward look at the name. Discover in our selection of Japanese ceramics the pieces for which this second look is especially worthwhile.
Sources and Literature
Traditional Crafts Aoyama Square (Japanese register of traditional crafts): KASAMA Yaki (Pottery), kougeihin.jp.
Traditional Crafts Aoyama Square (Japanese register of traditional crafts): SHIGARAKI Yaki (Pottery), kougeihin.jp.
Richard L. Wilson: Inside Japanese Ceramics. A Primer of Materials, Techniques, and Traditions. Weatherhill, New York 1995.
