Entering the World of Ceramics

Hanada: I heard during your previous exhibition that you, Mr. Shimura, originally worked in the culinary field, became interested in ceramics, and were drawn into this world through that experience.
How about you, Ms. Miyaoka? What was your path like?

Maiko Miyaoka: I studied oil painting at university, but I never felt that painting was something I would pursue professionally.

Hanada: Did you have any exposure to ceramics while you were at university?

Maiko Miyaoka: Students in the oil painting department don’t normally do ceramics. However, if you were earning a teaching license, you had to choose a craft subject. At that time, I chose metalwork rather than ceramics.

Hanada: So you were getting a teaching license (laughs).

Mutsuhiko Shimura: (laughs)

Maiko Miyaoka: You’re both laughing now… Everyone gets a teaching license, don’t they?

Hanada: Sorry about that. You do seem like you’d make a good teacher, Ms. Miyaoka.

Maiko Miyaoka: Oh no, not at all. I quickly realized it wasn’t for me.

Hanada: And then you graduated.

Maiko Miyaoka: After graduating, I stayed in Turkey for about five months.

Hanada: Were you studying something there?

Maiko Miyaoka: Studying… well… (laughs)

Mutsuhiko Shimura: You were playing an instrument at that time, right?

Maiko Miyaoka: Yes, the saz, a Turkish plucked string instrument.

Hanada: And while playing music, you encountered ceramics.

Maiko Miyaoka: I had always been interested in ceramics, and I also visited Kütahya, a well-known ceramic-producing region in Turkey.
While looking at Kütahya ceramics, I briefly thought that studying ceramics in Turkey might be interesting. But then I reconsidered and thought, “If I’m going to do ceramics, it should be in Japan,” and decided to attend a training school in Seto.

Hanada: Those five months in Turkey must have given you a valuable opportunity to look at Japanese things from the outside.
After that, the two of you met in Seto.

Maiko Miyaoka: Yes. In addition to school, there were shared rental kilns in Seto. We often pooled together with friends, rented a kiln, and fired a whole load together.

Mutsuhiko Shimura: We were experimenting and making all sorts of things.

Maiko Miyaoka: I’m starting to remember now (laughs). We made so many strange things, didn’t we? (laughs)
Didn’t we also try zinc crystalline glazes?

Mutsuhiko Shimura: Well, it was all part of experimenting.

Hanada: After finishing pottery school, Mr. Shimura, you apprenticed under Mr. Nagai (Sokichi), right?
What about you, Ms. Miyaoka?

Maiko Miyaoka: Shimura decided to stay in Seto, so I took a job at a ceramics factory there.

Hanada: In a way, those are quite contrasting career paths.

Maiko Miyaoka: Around that time, we also frequently went together to antique shops in Nagoya.
By seeing so many things, I think we gradually came to understand the contours of what we truly liked.

Hanada: Were your tastes similar?

Maiko Miyaoka: I think the things we both felt were “good” were quite close.

Hanada: Is there a particularly memorable piece?

Maiko Miyaoka: Seeing an ko-sometsuke mukōzuke made me realize how free and interesting blue-and-white ware could be.
Until then, I had thought sometsuke meant something precise and refined, but as I looked at antiques, I became drawn to the freedom of sometsuke and the generous quality of everyday wares.

Maiko Miyaoka: Yes, this one—this one. The mukōzuke with the motif.

Mutsuhiko Shimura: That was early on, when we bought that.

Hanada: So it began with ko-sometsuke.

Maiko Miyaoka: Yes. At first, we mainly modeled our work on ko-sometsuke.

Hanada: Were you focusing on something else at the time, Mr. Shimura?

Mutsuhiko Shimura: At that time, we were working on sometsuke together.

Maiko Miyaoka: We started out together, but we lacked cooperation far too much…

Hanada: Which of you lacked cooperation?

Mutsuhiko Shimura: It’s not one or the other—we both just want to do things our own way in the end (laughs).

Maiko Miyaoka: And as we kept trying different things, I came to like the soft feeling of early Imari.

The Beginning of Kagetsuyo

Hanada: Could you tell us the origin of the name Kagetsuyo?

Mutsuhiko Shimura: An antique dealer who has been very kind to us suggested it.

Maiko Miyaoka: We were given several options, and among them, Kagetsuyo felt the simplest and most beautiful.
When we were driving back from Seto to Tokyo, we saw a ramen shop called “Kagetsu,” and I remember thinking, “Oh… ramen shop…” (laughs)

Hanada: That must have been momentarily confusing (laughs). Did you find a workspace in Tokyo easily?

Mutsuhiko Shimura: We were mainly looking for a property with enough space to install a kiln.

Maiko Miyaoka: We chose this house simply because we could put a kiln here (laughs).

Mutsuhiko Shimura: We didn’t really look at the living space at all.

Maiko Miyaoka: After we moved in, we said to each other, “So this is what the house is like.”

Hanada: (laughs) Still, it turned out to be a lovely home and suits you both.

Maiko Miyaoka: It suits us. Living deep in nature would probably be a bit too much for us.

Mutsuhiko Shimura: This somewhat in-between location is just right for us.

Hanada: Close to Tokyo, yet surrounded by a fair amount of nature.

Mutsuhiko Shimura: There was a time when I admired the idea of living deep in the mountains.

Maiko Miyaoka: Like thinking that if you make pottery, you have to live in an old farmhouse in nature.

Hanada: The best place is wherever you feel most comfortable. And so, Kagetsuyo’s work began here in Tokyo.

Mutsuhiko Shimura: At first, we were constantly renovating the house. I was doing carpentry all the time…

Maiko Miyaoka: A neighbor once asked me, “Is that carpenter your husband?” (laughs)

Mutsuhiko Shimura: That did happen.

Ceramics Making That Was Simply There Before We Knew It

Hanada: What do each of you find enjoyable about making ceramics?

Maiko Miyaoka: I enjoy the moment when I first remove a piece from the mold. It’s like, “Oh, there it is!” (laughs).
As for painting, I’ve only recently started to enjoy it.
Or rather, I’ve finally reached a point where I feel satisfied with my own work.

Mutsuhiko Shimura: For me, it’s opening the kiln.
When a firing goes well, that’s a really happy moment.

Maiko Miyaoka: Opening the kiln is fun.

Hanada: Do you open the kiln together?

Mutsuhiko Shimura: No. Whoever has time does it.

Hanada: (laughs) When I previously asked you, Mr. Shimura, about a particularly memorable piece of your own work, you talked about a certain sake flask.
It’s already in someone else’s hands, you don’t even know where it is anymore, but you still think about it from time to time. Ms. Miyaoka, do you have something like that?

Maiko Miyaoka: Perhaps a tiered jubako box I made a few years ago. It was something I felt genuinely confident about.
It was a three-tiered box with plum blossoms and bush warblers reserved in white against a deep blue glaze, and painted in underglaze blue.

Hanada: You’ve made jubako many times—did this one feel especially successful?

Maiko Miyaoka: The construction was quite precise, and the design was something I was truly satisfied with.

Mutsuhiko Shimura: All the paintings connect across the three tiers, right? I wanted it for our New Year’s table (laughs). We still talk about that jubako from time to time.

Maiko Miyaoka: Yes, we do.

A Natural Approach to Ceramics by Two Happy People

Hanada: Do you ever discuss each other’s work?

Mutsuhiko Shimura: After something is finished, we might say, “That’s nice.”

Maiko Miyaoka: Basically, we only say positive things to each other (laughs).

Mutsuhiko Shimura: Because we don’t want to argue (laughs).

Maiko Miyaoka: Sometimes I do say things like, “Hmm, this one’s not quite right” (laughs). But usually, I already know it myself when that happens. I end up telling myself, “Well, it can’t be helped that it turned out this way.”

Hanada: You don’t sit side by side at the wheel, do you?

Mutsuhiko Shimura: We’re positioned at right angles, so we don’t have to face each other.

Hanada: (laughs) Is there something important that you both keep in mind when working?

Maiko Miyaoka: What we share is the idea of valuing a “natural feeling.”

Hanada: Not just in terms of materials, but also not leaning too heavily into technique…

Maiko Miyaoka: Like adding strange little flourishes… we avoid anything that feels contrived (laughs).

Mutsuhiko Shimura: We don’t do preliminary sketches.

Maiko Miyaoka: Somehow, it feels like things turn out better that way.

Hanada: You’re the same, Mr. Shimura—eliminating artificiality.

Mutsuhiko Shimura: With Joseon ceramics, it would be wonderful if we could make them softly, but it’s not easy.
I like that relaxed, unforced feeling, but it doesn’t come naturally.

Hanada: It’s difficult, isn’t it?
Even when we say “natural,” everyone perceives and expresses it differently.

Maiko Miyaoka: It’s like a sense of healthiness, or cleanliness… softness, or generosity.

Hanada: And that’s what you sense in the Joseon and early Imari pieces you admire.

Mutsuhiko Shimura: Later Imari becomes much more rigid and formal. Nabeshima, for example.

Maiko Miyaoka: Though there are Nabeshima pieces I like as well.

Hanada: As they are, they might be difficult to use on today’s dining table, but with arrangement and color choices, I think there’s plenty of potential.
Those bold compositions and ideas are incredibly inspiring.

Mutsuhiko Shimura: As they are, they feel a bit too perfect.

Hanada: Also, when I look at your work, more than anything, I feel the atmosphere of your happy everyday life. It gives the impression that “kind people must be making these.”

Looking Ahead

Hanada: I think the six-sun celadon bowl with relief decoration is one piece that symbolizes your work, Mr. Shimura. Are there any other pieces you feel particularly attached to?

Maiko Miyaoka: Perhaps the small plate with a chrysanthemum motif that I made early on. I’ve been making it continuously ever since.

Hanada: It comes in five different painted designs, right?

Maiko Miyaoka: It started with three designs and later became five.
I’ve kept making it for a long time, and it’s a piece I truly love.

Hanada: Is there anything you’re hoping to pursue in the future? When I spoke with Mr. Shimura recently, he mentioned starting to use cute motifs.

Mutsuhiko Shimura: Something new… hmm… chopstick rests.

Maiko Miyaoka: Your new challenge is chopstick rests…?

Hanada: Chopstick rests are a perfectly valid challenge! (laughs)

Maiko Miyaoka: As for me, I want to keep refining and improving what I’m already doing.

Mutsuhiko Shimura: Lately, it feels like you’ve been making a lot of things in deep blue glaze. That started after Hanada lent you that set of five blue-glazed pieces, didn’t it? That was when you changed the glaze once, right?

Maiko Miyaoka: That blue glaze is soft and airy—it just feels really nice.

Mutsuhiko Shimura: I think that’s when you started making more pieces like that.

Hanada: Sorry about this—this time, Mr. Shimura hasn’t talked as much.

Mutsuhiko Shimura: We just talked recently, so I don’t have much new to say (laughs).

Hanada: Then let’s ask about your goals for this coming February.

Mutsuhiko Shimura: I’m thinking of making simple pieces in celadon.

Hanada: Will you use relief decoration?

Mutsuhiko Shimura: Ah—sorry, I haven’t actually made them yet, so I can’t say for sure (laughs).

Hanada: You just thought of it now, didn’t you? (laughs)
(This interview was conducted in December 2016; he is, of course, working on it now.)

Mutsuhiko Shimura: Maybe something like simple inlay. When a piece is densely decorated, it can look complete at first glance, but when you think about serving food, I feel some blank space is also important.

Hanada: Space that makes you want to fill it with food.

Maiko Miyaoka: I’m thinking of trying pieces where I remove the glaze from areas of deep blue.

Hanada: The octagonal suisaka-style bowls were wonderful as well. I’m looking forward to seeing your new work.

Maiko Miyaoka: I’d like to make many different things.

Hanada: Finally, could you each say a few words?

Maiko Miyaoka: I hope it will be a joyful exhibition. I’m looking forward to seeing customers we met last time again. Kind of like, “See you soon~~” (laughs).

Mutsuhiko Shimura: From our standard pieces to new works, we plan to present a full range, so we hope you’ll come and see them!

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