Add Summer Color with Japanese Porcelains
Jul 11,2014
Jul 11,2014
Wherever you go in Japan, you’ll find pieces of tableware with a character all their own. They reflect the country’s cultural diversity and the vision of the artists who made them. Their presence adds sparkle to everyday surroundings. In this series, the owner of a tableware gallery showcases tableware that brightens your day and lends color to the season.
We recently visited Eto Aya, proprietor of the gallery Natsutsubaki, to ask her about porcelains, which are perfect for early summer. It was the middle of the rainy season, and the morning showers had let up. Raindrops glistened on the blueberries in the large vase in the garden.
“Porcelain has a sleek, sharp look, which makes it perfect for summer,” says Aya. “Cool-colored items like celadon are especially well suited to early summer.” Even a single item of porcelain has a commanding presence, but porcelain has a further advantage: it possesses a beauty that brings out the best in the other tableware. “The pieces by Anzai Arata and Atsuko featured here have real class. They radiate dignity and elegance. They can be combined with wood, glass, and other robust materials to mutual advantage without clashing. They really come in handy for creating a table setting for summer. Traditional crockery of the weighty, sturdy type can make a dining table look impressive, but the wrong combination will result in an overheavy look. But even alongside the sturdiest tableware, porcelains like these look the part. They’re equally good at playing the starring role or filling the gaps.”
“Viewed in isolation, some of these dishes may leave you wondering what to do with them. They strike you as too plain and simple. When you actually serve food on them, though, they make it look delectable. They leave a completely different impression than when you see them on their own. The Anzais’ dishware commands a large following among cooking aficionados and culinary professionals because it nicely sets off the food.”
Another hallmark of the Anzais’ pottery is that it emanates a new aesthetic while conforming to classic porcelain styles. “The traditional and the new: a lack of either makes a piece ho-hum,” Aya observes. Because this crockery combines both, it has the versatility to highlight any cuisine. While nicely complementing Japanese food, it doesn’t seem out of place with Western food either.
Aya had this advice. “Deciding what dinnerware to use is like deciding what to wear. You can opt for your favorite outfit. Or you can have fun picking and choosing while considering how it goes with the rest of your wardrobe. Keep what you currently have in your collection at the back of your mind. So try creating a cool, refreshing look by jazzing up your table with porcelain. It’s a great accent for summer.”
Cuisine prepared by Matsumoto Akiko of Kaeru Shokudo
You can’t erase your individuality no matter how much you stifle or curtail it.
— Anzai Arata and Atsuko
The husband-and-wife team of Anzai Arata and Atsuko relocated to Kaga, Ishikawa Prefecture, in 2006. This move led to a change in the character of their work.
“There’s a fishing port nearby, so fresh fish are available at the supermarket, and the fish they cook at the fishmonger’s and the deli tastes delicious. Inevitably, then, we ended up eating predominantly Japanese-style meals. And so almost as a matter of course, we started making crockery that went with Japanese food,” explains Arata.
“Tokyo is awash in information,” Atsuko chimes in, “and many of the pieces we made there were restrained and simple. Ishikawa, though, gets a lot of cloudy days. That gives you the urge to add colors and accentuate. Among the best-known traditional ceramics of Ishikawa is Kutani ware. It’s a very colorful style of pottery, and I think I can see why it took root.”
“We’ve also become attuned to how ingredients change with the seasons. In spring you want to use a dish like this, and in summer you wish you had a dish like that. It’s thoughts like these that inspire the wares we make today.”
Because Arata apprenticed in Arita and Atsuko in Kyoto, porcelain dominates their output. Currently they produce porcelain and semiporcelain wares using kaolin from Kyoto and Ishikawa. These are somehow reminiscent of traditional, antique pieces, which reflects the couple’s shared aesthetic.
“I think what attracts us to antique pieces is that, unlike mass-produced items, they betray unmistakable traces of the human touch,” says Arata. “Food comes from nature, and I can’t help feeling that it looks more delicious served on dishware textured by human hands. But deliberately leaving traces of our own hands on our works would, I feel, be going too far. I don’t think you can erase your individuality no matter how much you stifle or curtail it. That’s why recently, we’ve consciously tried to avoid letting our individuality show through. We treasure whatever slight vestiges of it remain.”
Atsuko says that the couple’s creative aspirations have broadened with the birth of their child. “We now have a desire to make pieces that are true to ourselves but would also delight a child. And I don’t just mean something for kids.”
The couple makes pottery that mirrors the surroundings in which they work and their own shifting emotions. That, perhaps, is why it so successfully combines a naturalness that suits any dining table with the freshness that is their trademark.