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Discovering the Historical Town of Pottery – Shigaraki

Discovering the Historical Town of Pottery – Shigaraki：Photo Trip Reports

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Culture

Discovering the Historical Town of Pottery – Shigaraki

: Yuri Ardila（Indonesia）
Eito Gaku（China）
Mai Nonogaki（Japan）
Kana Ishida（Japan）

: Dec 5, 2010

This town is called Shigaraki. This town is very famous of its pottery, and has a very deep history of pottery within it. Here, we can look and learn variety of potteries.

First time in Shigaraki. Wait.. what is that? Bear? No.. it’s a Raccoon.
As we walked on the street of Shigaraki, we discovered plenty of Raccoon Statues.
Then we arrived in the Village of Pottery of Shigaraki. Here, we had the opportunity to learn how to make, conserve, and distribute the ceramics.
We can shape the ceramic by using our bare hands, or a (self-made) clay-shaper.
Very cute! this is Shigaraki’s mascot, Ponpoko-Chan.
Materials will shrink by around 10% to 15% of its initial size after the burning process.
Here we can experience painting on some sculptures, let’s try!
This is one of the sculptures that we can paint on. There are also other types of sculptures available, such as Ninja Raccoon.
Let your ideas and imaginations lead you to make a master-piece.
Voila! These are our masterpieces! We didn’t want to leave them here, so we decided to bring them home as a souvenir.
A Noborigama. It is a chambered climbing kiln built on a slope for the burning process. This Noborigama is not used anymore, but it is very interesting to see it directly.
Because it is not used anymore, they decided to change it into a cafe!
And we had a cup of coffee here, and shared about today’s experience.
Then, we went out of the Village of Pottery, and arrived at the Kamamoto Sansakuro. This place also has many potter’s place to visit. (However, be careful that not all places are availabe to visit)
Here, they showed us another type of kiln.
This kiln uses gas with a very high temperature to burn the materials.
Not too far from this place, there is another Noborigama to visit.
This Noborigama is also not being used anymore, and it has changed to an art gallery.
This owl statue is one of the art exhibited inside the gallery.
Thereafter, we went to another famous potter’s place in Shigaraki.
He is the senior potter here, Ogawa Kenzo.
These are his artworks. It uses the dry pottery technique, thus there is no burning process. The final products are then exported to many Japanese restaurants.
And this place also has a pottery club, where the member can learn how to make one.
Moreover, there is also an exhibition for Ogawa Kenzo’s artworks. We can also purchase one there with variety of prices.
Now these are Japanese-style eating utensils from the final products.
Visitors can also spend a night in this place while experiencing much about pottery. From this cottage, we can actually see a mountain where they take the clay for the materials.
We can also gaze at Shigaraki’s picturesque view from here.
Not even a second have i spent my time in Shigaraki with regret. Everything in here is very beautiful and mind blowing, yet it also has broadened my knowledge in many fields. A highly recommended place to visit and calm your mind from the pressure of works or studies.