Katsumi KAKO is a third-generation, Kyoto-born potter living in Sasayama, a charming provincial town outside of Kobe in Hyogo prefecture.  Throughout the production process, he resonates with clay as a natural material, culminating with works completed by fire in the kiln. Kako’s pots have a keen, cutting-edge sense of form, while maintaining faithfulness to traditional shapes and the tsuchi aji (the “flavor” of the clay) of traditional ash glazes and earthy skin textures. 

Kako is always pushing himself to expand the range of his work and creates a new series on a regular basis. While he is best known for his chawan tea bowls, he also creates large, innovative, and timeless sculptural works that show his deeper creative side. His work retains the rusticity of the traditional pottery of his district but with a contemporary sensibility. A modest man, Kako will ask others for ways to improve his work. Listening to others sharpens his senses. 

He continues to mature, testing his horizons as an artist and building on the foundations of his previous success. In addition to his own clay work, he holds a vision of a collaborative of local Sasayama crafts people, specializing in ceramics, glass, woodworking, amongst others, with the goal to develop markets internationally, domestically as well as locally.

Japan is home to some of the world’s oldest ceramics dating back about 12,000 years. There are possibly more ceramic styles and techniques in use in Japan today as well as more working master ceramists than most of the world combined. Japan produces earthenware, stoneware, and porcelain, for both functional and non-functional purposes. 

In addition to pottery by Master Artisans who create in small quantities, those by Master Artists making one-of-a-kind or very limited editions can be found in significant collections throughout the world. 

Whether it is distinctively Japanese unglazed works, porcelain, or stoneware for tea ceremony or fine food presentation, folk-style functional ware or celadon works at the pinnacle of human achievement, we see shapes, colors, and textures of almost limitless variety, making Japan a true Mecca of ceramics for the 21st century.