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High on a hill outside the town of
Karatsu, in the Saga prefecture of Kyushu Japan, two adjacent driveways leave a
thinly populated narrow winding road and veer away from each other. They pass two sides of a 54-foot long
rectangular building sheathed in corrugated steel siding. At 9:00 pm on an April night, the sound of a
steady spring rain falling outside mixes with the soothingly haunting melody of
Bach’s cello suites playing inside. It
is comfortably cool. This is the kind
season, a season of tempered weather between the cold dampness of winter and
the oppressive humid heat of summer.
Inside, Hanako Nakazato, a 34-year old potter, sits near her wheel
attending to a board full of half dry cups.
She is 5’3 with broad shoulders.
Her oak colored skin stretches over wide cheekbones and her thin lips
rest in a slight frown. Her seat faces
a row of picture windows. The glass
divides her well-lit throwing room from the thick darkness of the rainy
night. The windows reflect her
surroundings back at her. The room is
all wood rising from a cement floor.
The walls are paneled in cedar and large wooden beams support the high
roof. The building is exquisitely crafted, an honest structure made of honest
materials. It is handsome in its
simplicity and quietly boasts the skills of its makers.
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Hanako,
a Karatsu native who left Japan at age 16 and spent the next 16 years in
America, is nearing the end of her long day.
After a year back in Japan and merely three and a half months in her new
studio, she has recently entered the second production phase of what is proving to be a
very busy year. With ten shows
scheduled throughout Japan and one in New York City, her only time away from
the studio these days is spent eating, sleeping or traveling for
exhibitions. Tonight, she diligently
attaches lumps of clay to each one of the cups before her and tugs them into
graceful wide handles transforming the vessels into mugs. These popular porcelain mugs are one of
several designs in her production line, the bread and butter of monohanako, her
new business. “I’m stunned,” she says,
looking up from her work. Big brown eyes shine out below the thin arches of her
eyebrows. Her left eyebrow is pierced
and sports a silver ring. “I have so
much work that I have almost forgotten what I was feeling a year ago.” She refers to the doubts and uncertainties
she faced while deciding to return to Japan and build a studio in the hometown
she left in 1989. “I need to be here at
this moment. There is no thinking
back. It’s like playing tennis at
Wimbledon.”
The
tennis reference is not an arbitrary one for Hanako. In junior high school, Hanako was a devoted tennis player. After winning the Kyushu Jr. tournament, she
was given the opportunity to spend two weeks at the Nick Bollettieri tennis
camp in Florida. Upon her return to
Japan, the ‘study only’ ethic of Japan proved troublesome to Hanako. Like everyone her age, she was marching
toward a prescribed goal, getting into a top university. “Life in Japan is so known, so
expected.” Hanako describes the
experience of Japanese youth as that of stepping along prescribed steps, a
sequence of uninteresting years spent accomplishing a predictable string of
tasks. “It all felt so meaningless, so
empty. I wasn’t interested in
that. I wanted to experience more than
‘normal’ life. I wanted to be in a
different culture, meet a different mentality.”
In 1989 Hanako started her sophomore year at
a Florida high school that she believed would support her tennis and academic
goals. Unsatisfied, she moved around
throughout her high school years, never finding the right mix if a good
education and great coaching. Back in
Florida, after high school, Hanako’s energy was depleted. “I knew my level, and Florida wasn’t a good
fit.” But going home wasn’t an option
for the driven teen. “I couldn’t go
home,” she says. “To burn out on tennis
and then go home would be a failure.”
Hanako retired her tennis racket and entered Smith College in
Northampton, MA.
At 7:30, the light of the rising sun
illuminates a hillside of bare dirt and hardy weeds, the landscape of recent
construction. Hanako walks a newly made pathway from her small house above to
her studio below. Her short black hair, styled into a fashionable mess, juts
out at random angles. The cherry
blossoms heralding spring have fallen and each day the procession of green
advances. The gently slanting roof of
her studio, with a generous overhang, produces a swath of shade that travels
the north length of the building as the sun shines through the south facing
picture windows warming the length of the building throughout the day. Hanako enters and turns on her ipod, her
constant companion. The electronic
Argentinean tango of Gotan Project fills the room. After a few minutes spent organizing her space, she sits down at
her wheel, pushes up her sleeves and starts throwing. She is producing for three shows throughout June and July and has
calculated that she needs upwards of 2000 pots. All must be made quickly.
Throwing is just the first step in production. Each pot must be trimmed, bisked, glazed, fired, sorted, labeled,
and packed before they are ready to send to galleries. She leans into a large
piece of clay on the wheel and centers it in a series of repeated motions,
squeezing the clay with strong arms upwards into a cone and compressing it back
down again. She then takes a fist-sized
piece between her hands and rounds it.
Pressing the clay between thumbs and palms, she opens a new pot. “I am interested in the form,” she
says. “I like the immediacy of the
action and reaction. A slight movement
will affect the clay. It’s sensual to
me. Pottery is very sensual.” Her head bobs slightly as she follows the
spinning shape before her. In just a
few swift movements she has pulled the clay into a delicate bowl. As it turns, she smoothes the lip and wraps
a yellow cord around the base cutting it free of the still unformed clay below. “Pottery is immediate,” she says, “but it
also takes a long time. The feeling
changes. When you fire it, it
changes.” She gently lifts the complete
bowl, sets it on a board to her right, and begins the next pot. She moves quickly, repeating the shape many
times over.
Hanako’s
agility with clay is a direct result of her vigorous training, a training she
never fully intended to undertake.
After graduating from Smith in 1996, Hanako was faced with the sobering
reality that once out of school, she was no longer guaranteed a visa to stay in
the United States. “I wasn’t prepared at all.”
A shadow of regret darkens her eyes as she continues. “I hit the reality. I had one more year to figure out my life
and my visa. I had no practical
skills. I was thinking sushi chef or
language interpreter or Japanese something.”
But after several months searching for an employer to sponsor her, she
felt defeated. “I couldn’t convince
myself, therefore I couldn’t convince them.
I felt forced to go home.”
At
that time, Hanako’s father, an accomplished potter, was traveling and working
in various art centers around the world.
She joined him as his assistant in Denmark, Colorado and Hawaii, and in
her time with him, she began to work with clay. “Back then, I didn’t really think about becoming a potter.” But her father was showing her a lifestyle
she had never before associated with pottery.
“He was demonstrating that you can travel and see different people. You meet not only potters, but architects
and designers. It was very inspiring.”
She
returned to Karatsu with her father and moved back into her childhood home, a
large drafty house overlooking a lush valley.
But her home was not a quiet place for contemplating the future. Though
idyllic in nature, it is a busy pottery production center called
Ryutagama. Apprentices assist and learn
in the studio where her father and brother run a production line and make
pieces for individual shows. A staff of
four run the office where hundreds of pots are organized, labeled, packed and
shipped weekly. And in the large
kitchen of the family house, a full time cook prepares lunches shared by all
employees. Idyll hands were not
tolerated and the pace of the studio did not allow Hanako to simply play with
clay. Hanako remembers that time
saying, “If I wanted to touch clay, I had to become an apprentice.” Perhaps, for lack of another plan, that is
what she did. For two and a half years,
she lived at home and apprenticed with her father. She spent long days cleaning, wedging clay, splitting wood,
glazing and firing the Ryutagama production line. In the early morning and late night hours, she practiced at the
wheel throwing the same shape over and over until she could replicate it
without variation.
Hanako still dreamed of returning to
America. “I wanted to go back to the States.
I just felt like Japan wasn’t the place for me.’ In America she had experienced the freedom
to present herself outside the context of her family and culture. And her time away had provided the
opportunity to see Japan from afar.
“Developing my identity outside of Japan made me examine my cultural
identity, Japanese culture. I really
care about that.” While in America, she
studied Japan’s religions and core cultural traditions including the culture of
tea. She was able to isolate the parts
of Japanese culture that she deeply respected.
And she was able to separate the parts she respected from the parts made
her leave, mainly the sense of being molded into a common identity that had
restricted her as a child. She became
selective. “I could pick and choose
what I like about Japan and exaggerate that part of me.” But her time away prevented a smooth
re-entry into Japanese society. “I came
back here with a new respect but everyone treated me as an Americanized
girl. It made me feel like an outsider
in my hometown.” Hanako was anxious to
leave Japan again. “But I couldn’t
leave my own home without skills. Even
though I didn’t like what I was doing, I decided that I was going to finish
it.”
With
her training completed and her new skills as a production potter, Hanako looked
for a way back to the States. Malcolm
Wright, an American potter who had studied with Hanako’s grandfather, an
internationally recognized potter, in the late 1960s, agreed to sponsor her as
a skilled worker in his studio. She
credits pottery as her “door, like tennis, back to the States,” but says, “I
didn’t want to admit that I was making a serious commitment [to pottery]. I thought, I’m a potter now but I could be
something else.” In 2000, Hanako left
Japan for the second time and settled in New England to work in Malcolm’s
studio. While there, she had the
opportunity to begin making her own work.
“I enjoyed [pottery] as soon as I left Ryutagama. I enjoyed making my own shapes and as a
result, to my surprise, what I made sold pretty easily.” Hanako continued with pottery under the
pretext, “as long as it lasts, I will keep doing it.” She worked at Malcolm’s studio for five years. “My stuff sold more and more,” she casually
states. “I stopped thinking “oh,
there’s another job for me.’ I was
starting to accept pottery and make a commitment.”
Though
Hanako found some success selling her work in America, the majority of her
sales were back in Japan. Participating
in family shows that led to solo shows, Hanako was producing pots in America
and flying 80 percent of them back to Japan.
Though pottery had afforded her the opportunity to live in America, the
country that felt like the right personal fit, it was proving to be an inefficient
professional fit. In 2002 her father
was diagnosed with colon and liver cancer.
Three years earlier, Hanako had seen her mother through cervical
cancer. Both of her parents surmounted
their illnesses but it drew Hanako’s attention back to her family. Faced with
the realities of growing older, her parents began getting their affairs in
order. Politics were shifting at
Ryutagama as her brother took over management and it was agreed that the family
business should be officially handed down.
A new house was built away from Ryutagama where her parents would live
out their later years. And as her sales
increased, Hanako was outgrowing Malcolm’s studio.
Hanako sits at her large dining table
after lunch catching up on correspondence.
She is coordinating delivery dates for her upcoming shows, negotiating
the gallieries’ desire for an early delivery with her need for plenty of
production time. Before her two large
glass sliding doors overlook the roof of her studio on the right, just yards
away from her parent’s house on the left.
One can see over the two buildings to the distant rounded hillsides and
rippled mountains. “I never expected my
life to be this,” she says, sounding a bit surprised. “I’m really glad I found this.
This is really me.” Her words
are a startling, even to herself. “A
year ago I was totally nervous. I was
building a studio and home back in Karatsu thinking this is not exactly what I
want.”
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Hanako looks out on the view outside her windows, the large studio full
of unshaped clay, the hillside in need of landscaping, and her parent’s home just yards away from her
own. “This is a serious
challenge,” she says, her voice layered with exhaustion and determination. “I want to prove to the public that I am
independent, independent from my family.
She speaks of the Nakazato potters, her father, grandfather, and the 12
generations of potters said to precede him.
It is a family whose respected presence in the field of Japanese pottery
is her best asset and worst liability.
To be a Nakazato potter is to be instantly respected and instantly
classified. Hanako struggles to rightly
earn her own respect and resist that classification. Although highly influenced by Karatsu pottery and her father’s pottery,
her work is strikingly different.
“Tradition is something to learn from, not to copy,” she says. “Karatsu is not modern. I like the structure and bones [of Karatsu
pottery]. It’s gutsy. The structure [of my work] is Karatsu, but
in terms of surface and shapes, I’m interested in modernism, form and
function. Scandinavian designs inspire
me.”
Hanako’s description of her pottery,
Western designs disguising a Karatsu skeleton is an accurate metaphor of her
own composition. She has made peace
with her two identities, a Japanese core coated in non-Japanese traits. She faces the same challenges re-entering
Japanese society now as she did in her first return to Ryutagama as an
apprentice. She feels the weight of
preconceived notions as people make assumptions about her based on the family
she comes from and her years away from Japan.
But this time, she says, “I’m okay with the sense of being an
outsider. Because of that, sometimes I
see things with a different perspective, meaning clearly. I’m celebrating having that
perspective. That feeling pushes
me. It’s my inspiration. I want to create a cultural bridge in a
unique way.”
Hanako
is doing just that, producing strong, elegant forms with clay that proudly defy
classification. They are absolutely
Japanese pots, but they are absolutely not simply Japanese pots. Her audience is predictably wide. In June she will show at the Manyodo Gallery
in Tokyo, an established gallery steeped in the traditions of tea. In July she will show in New York City, at
the Bespoke gallery, a Chelsea gallery dedicated to presenting new, innovative
artists. She has a similar message to
send to both audiences. “Everything revolves around food. How we eat makes us who we are. Japanese eating culture is so unique. We combine different kinds of dishes on the
table whereas in the States, every dish matches, like a uniform. American culture celebrates differences but
not at the dinner table.” She sees
similar restrictions in the Japanese use of pottery. “I deeply respect the tea culture but it is so easy to hold on to
it and feel safe. Tea used to be avant
guard, an honest expression of compassion with the host creatively setting an
environment to please a guest. Now tea
is all rules. It is mechanized and
strict. I want to say, ‘anything can
go, but let’s really pay attention to what we are doing. Let’s make it fun and interesting.’ I want to introduce the idea of freeing your
mind from the rules. I’m expressing my
cultural heritage in my own way, my own interpretation.”
Back in the studio, Hanako begins to stack
dry pots on kiln shelves. She is
preparing for the first of a dozen upcoming firings. She currently works with a gas kiln, favoring clear and black
glazes. Her pots emerge from the kiln
in even monochrome shades. Once glazed
and fired, Hanako’s work with the pot is done.
“It’s finished but it’s not yet completed,” she says. “I’m interested in the fact that it’s beyond
my control. It’s in other people’s
hands. It changes in everyday
life. I hope that my pottery is living in somebody else’s life.” As she works, she listens to her favorite
American radio show, NPR’s Fresh Air, downloaded onto her ipod. She looks around her studio as she talks.
The arrangement of things, chairs scattered about, clusters of buckets and
piles of glaze chemistry makes the space look used but not yet lived in. Things feel shuffled about as though they
have not quite found the right space to inhabit. But how could it be otherwise?
For the first time Hanako is in her own space and she is racing to keep
up with herself. “People ask me, ’so,
are you settled in Japan?’ Yes and
no. I always have America in the back
of my head. I want to stay in between. That’s where I belong. In between is not wishy-washy. Knowing black and knowing white allows you
to see gray. That’s where I want to
be.”
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