Tokyo Tech Pottery Camp

Koichi Endo, Associate Professor, Tokyo Tech Museum and Archives
Takayuki Ako, Associate Professor, Tokyo Tech Museum and Archives

The Pottery Camp was divided into six phases in order to allow participants to experience the various manufacturing processes related to the craft of pottery. The program aimed to introduce the design process: theory, plan/design, production/work, and evaluation/feedback.

The Pottery Camp began in November with lectures. Then participants worked with clay in December at Tokyo Tech and in Mashiko Town. Glazing and firing were done in March and presentations were given in April. For about six months, five Tokyo Tech students and sixteen students from the high school worked together making pottery.

Participating students started potting with molds and shaping clay by hand at Tokyo Tech's Ookayama Campus. 500 kg of low-water clay was prepared. Students shaped the clay with four types of wooden tubular molds and two types of bowl-shaped unglazed molds. After shaping the clay, students made patterns on or attached handles to their pieces demonstrating their creativity.

In the hand building session, students molded clay by building up rings of coils. There were no limitations on how to shape the clay, so pieces shaped like animals or plants were also possible.

Participating students moved to Mashiko Town and stayed there three days and two nights for throwing pots on a potter's wheel. Two students shared one wheel for throwing. The bigger the artwork became, the easier it was for it to lose its shape due to the effects caused by small distortions. Using a wheel shortened the time needed to make a piece, but required a large amount of concentration. In addition to engaging in clay work, students visited the Shoji Hamada Memorial Mashiko Sankokan Museum and the Tsukamoto Pottery Studio.

Before biscuit firing, it is necessary to trim the foot of a bowl made on the wheel and finalize the shape of the pot. Due to time constraints, this process was done by Mr. Murata, Mr. Abe from the Ceramic Art Messe Mashiko & Studio, and Mr. Nakayama from Mingeiten Mashiko. After that, the pieces were left to dry and fired in an electric kiln.

Participating students gathered again in Mashiko Town in March. When loading a climbing kiln, the location of each piece is determined by the type of glaze it is to have. Therefore, students classified their pieces by glaze type before glazing. The task of glazing was divided into three parts: glazing the pots, cleaning the bottoms of the pots to avoid having them stick to the shelves during firing, and sorting them for loading in the kiln.

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  Students' artwork after biscuit firing
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  Glazing
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  Cleaning the bottoms of pots

Firing Schedule

Firing continued throughout the night. For the firing during the night of March 27, students were divided into two groups to add firewood through the main stoke hole into the fire box of the kiln or through the smaller stoke holes located on both sides of each chamber. The timing and amount of firewood to be added were determined according to a pyrometer called a Seger cone located in the kiln. By controlling the flames and the amount of oxygen, chemical changes and effects in the clay and glazes were induced.

Adding firewood through the main stoke hole in the fire box of the kiln

For the long-awaited unloading of the climbing kiln, students returned to Mashiko Town. More than 500 pieces of pottery were produced at the Pottery Camp. Presentations were given to showcase the students' pots and artwork in which they reported on their experiences in the program. Local people were invited to hear the presentations of the students which were broken down into four themes.

Participating students embraced the challenges pottery manufacturing presented them. As none of them had any prior experience before participating in this program, they learned the importance of careful planning in the preparatory stages, such as processing the clay, preparing and storing the firewood, and creating a detailed plan based on a predicted temperature and flame distribution pattern in the climbing kiln. In addition, students selected glazes and the appropriate locations for their pots in the chambers of the climbing kiln according to the numbers, sizes and thicknesses of their pieces. During firing, they controlled the amount of firewood and oxygen as they watched the temperature in the kiln. Although students created a comprehensive plan, they had to adjust things as needed to produce the best outcomes. In this way, they experienced the actual processes of manufacturing firsthand. These very experiences were what the Pottery Camp aimed for and were a sign of the success of the program.

The Pottery Camp is the third regional cooperative effort between Tokyo Tech and Mashiko Town. The first two were the exhibitions Experience Mashiko-Yaki Pottery at Tokyo Institute of Technology held in 2012 and Tatsuzo Shimaoka's Works of Art, the Nakazawa Collection owned by Tokyo Tech's Museum displayed in commemoration of his being awarded honorary citizenship in Mashiko Town in 2013. The Museum will further develop educational activities, disseminate research with a focus on manufacturing, and promote relationships with regional communities.

The pots and pieces of artwork created will be displayed at the Tokyo Tech's Pottery Camp exhibition in the exhibition room on the 2nd floor of the Museum from May 25 through June 30. Later this year the exhibition is scheduled to be shown at the Tokyo Tech High School of Science and Technology's fall school festival. We look forward to your visit.

Group shot at Mashiko Town with Mr. Tomoyuki Otsuka, Mayor of Mashiko

The Pottery Camp was supported by the Cultivating Human Resources for Manufacturing program, a program of the Tokyo Institute of Technology Foundation.

Published: May 2014