2009/09/04

Tokoname pottery

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Tokoname pottery 常滑焼
from Aichi prefecture
愛知県常滑焼(とこなめ焼)

Tokoname is one of the six old kilns of Japan. It is now famous for its tea pots and bonsai pots.




This is Daruma as a piggy bank from Tokoname clay. He comes in various sizes.


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kyusu Teapot with Daruma design

常滑焼急須 百ダルマ 朱 
Made by 雪堂作・壺堂彫 



source : calamel


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Manekineko beckoning cat with Daruma
だるま猫

Tokoname Yaki



Cats and Daruma 猫と達磨 Beckoning Cats


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常滑焼 
焼酎サーバー
ダルマ型
Container to serve shochu liquor,
takes 2 liters.

. . . CLICK here for Photos !

Shochu Schnaps dispenser
<> 焼酎サーバー

from Arita pottery







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quote
The pottery made on the Chita Peninsula, especially in Tokoname City in Aichi Prefecture, is known as Tokoname-yaki. Kilns have been at work here for about 900 years, and in the pottery region of the Chita Peninsula remains of 1,200 ancient kilns, outnumbering those found in any other part of the country. Production peaked during the 12th and 13th centuries, at which time an estimated 3,000 kilns were built, and Tokoname-yaki was shipped throughout Japan.

Initially, the products were religious items such as jars for storing Buddhist sutra scrolls. In the 14th and 15th century production shifted towards items for household use including pots and large storage vessels. In the 18th century evolution towards the current style of Tokoname-yaki began with the creative input of artisans. Then, in the 19th century, the red clay teapot, the best known of all Tokoname-yaki items, was created. The iron-rich clay comes out an attractive brownish red color after being kilned. These days the pots are mass-produced and used daily in many ordinary households.

In the 20th century, demand has changed with the modernization of society and new types of items have been produced. In addition to the red teapots, tea cups, tableware, flower vases, and ornaments, the production of ceramic pipes, tiles, sanitary ware, and flower pots has been on the increase, and a great variety of products are now being manufactured in Tokoname.
source : web-japan.org/atlas/crafts




Tokoname is a high-fired ash-glazed ware made in Aichi Prefecture (in the region formerly known as Sanage).
Originated sometime in the 9th century.
Read more HERE : Robert Yellin
http://www.e-yakimono.net/guide/html/tokoname.html



Reference : Tokoname Pottery

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.. .. .. Yakimono 焼物 <> Daruma in and on pottery 
Introduction  


Kyuusu 急須 Kyusu Teapot with Daruma san


Daruma Museum

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H A I K U

CLICK for more photos
Dokanzaka, Slope with Earthen Pots, 常滑 土管坂
Ceramic Promenade, Pottery Path


常滑の土管色して冬の菊
Tokoname no dokan iroshite fuyu no kiku

winter chrysanthemums
in the color of an earthen pot
from Tokoname


Takazawa Ryoichi 高澤良一 鳩信



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常滑の煉瓦煙突燕来る

a brick chimney
of the city of Tokoname-
the swallows have arrived


Yasushi Kurita 栗田やすし
伊吹嶺
http://www.ibukinet.jp/english/haiku_collections/president.html



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常滑や土管土留めに蕎麦畑
Tomita Kiyo 富田キヨ


常滑の海より曇る春の雁
Nishikawa Fumiko 西川文子


常滑の窯場へ女礼者かな
福田邦子


常滑や蓬萌やして休窯日
鈴木真砂女


門火して常滑陶磁器館休み
田中裕明 櫻姫譚


黒ずみし常滑磐や花うぐひ
山口峰玉

source : HAIKUreikuDB



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2 comments:

anonymous said...

Japan Times, 2005

All fired up for ceramics central

By CHRIS BAMFORTH

At the height of production in the 12th to 13th centuries, around 3,000 kilns were firing teacups, plates, bowls and jars. Such was the renown of Tokoname that it became known as one of the "Six Old Kilns of Japan."

As you might expect, Tokoname has quite a soft spot for the ceramics it has been producing since way back when. Pottery is practically the first thing you step on as you leave the station, that pottery being in the form of rounded shards set into the pavement -- the same shards that are seen in the town's most historic environs. Also displayed at the station and other points in the town are the large meter-high, brick-red shochu containers that Toko- name once produced in vast numbers.

The area that most tourists head for is the old ceramic-producing heart of the town, usually visited on one of two courses that are together known as the Pottery Path (Yakimono Sampomichi) which is lined with the workshops of the many craftsmen who keep the area's ceramic tradition alive. Dominating the landscape here are the truncated stumps of brick-built kiln chimneys, which are now no more than 5 to 10 meters high, though originally they were two or three times taller.

A large photo in Tokoname Ceramic Hall at the beginning of the Pottery Path shows how those chimneys looked in their heyday in the early '60s, when the town had an industrial bleakness not unlike that of the potteries' region in northern England. The gradual transition to gas and electric kilns made the tall chimneys redundant, and their height was reduced so that they would not topple over and crush anyone in the event of an earthquake.

Noborigama
This kind of through-draft kiln revolutionized the firing of ceramics after the Japanese learned the technique from the Koreans -- one of the few positive things the Japanese gained from their invasions of that peninsula in the 1590s.

The kiln consisted of a series of chambers built into a hillside, with the heat from the firebox at the bottom rising through the successive chambers. Tokoname's climbing kiln was built in 1886 and was still being used as late as 1974. At the top of the kiln stands a row of 10 smoke flues, which is one of the town's most distinctive sights. For most people, a drainpipe is, well, just a drainpipe. But in Tokoname, so many were produced that the drainpipe has entered the aesthetic sensibilities of the locals. Toko- name must be one of the few places in the world where drainpipes are prized for their ornamental qualities. In the older area of Tokoname, drainpipes and shochu containers are seen everywhere, decoratively set along paths or built into hillsides as retaining structures. And this use of the pipes is no embellishment introduced for the benefit of rubberneckers: Drainpipes are used in this way near ordinary homes, far from the main visitor routes.

Pipes are also behind the story of the town's hero. Hoju Koie thrust greatness on Tokoname when in the latter half of the 19th century he devised a method for mass-producing drainpipes using wooden molds. These clay pipes now account for more than 50 percent of the town's industrial output. In recognition of Koie's contribution to their prosperity, grateful locals erected a statue of him on the Pottery Path, executed -- naturally -- in ceramic.

Takita family.

Another picturesque spot can be found a little further down the coast in a town called Mihama. Here, a white, 18-meter-high lighthouse stands rather attractively on a rocky shoreline among a cluster of palm trees that you suspect didn't just happen to be there. This pint-size lighthouse is no bad place to spend the end of the day. And it is quite a romantic spot, with the waves crashing into the shore and the small fishing boats scurrying home across Ise Bay -- provided, of course, that you mentally blot out the sound of all those jets rumbling in to Centrair.

The Japan Times
(C) All rights reserved
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fv20050325a1.html

Gabi Greve said...

Japanese page about Tokoname potters . . .
.
http://tokonamesanpo.jp/menu/index.php?category_id=1&page=2
.