Tag: Kyoto

Patterns that have Enchanted Generations of Tastemakers: Fukusa Textiles by Kitamura Tokusai in Kyoto

June 13, 2016Textiles Kitamura Tokusai

Silk fukusa by Kitamura Tokusai available in our shop ->

Tucked into the mesmerizing narrow backstreets of Kyoto’s historic Nishijin area and just a few steps away from the headquarters of the two grand, centuries-old Japanese tea schools of Omotesenke and Urasenke, there is a humble little shop with a curious square of orange silk hanging at the front entrance of the store.

At first glance, the elegant, spare shop exterior could seem daunting, even to a Japanese. But on the contrary, the bright silk square is a symbol of hospitality in the all-inclusive practice of tea. And passing through its doors will allow you to discover an important connection to the textiles of highly ritualized, yet fascinating, tea preparation.

The Kitamura Tokusai Fukusa shop in Nishijin, Kyoto, with a single fukusa hanging in the storefront

This is the shop of Kitamura Tokusai, who has been making fine silk cloths, known as fukusa, for practitioners of tea since 1712. Kitamura Yumiko, the wife of the current shop owner, warmly and enthusiastically explains why the fukusa came about and its utility. “The fukusa was born from the people’s desire to cushion, wrap and protect valuable things”. She adds that “it symbolizes the spirit to cherish objects,” a concept worthy of reintroduction into our contemporary materialistic culture.

Inside the Kitamura Tokusai Fukusa shop. The building is a registered traditional architecture of Kyoto

In Chado (The Way of Tea), a double-layered, square piece of fukusa silk cloth is used by the host during tea preparation. Larger fukusa, approximately 11.25”x10.8” in size, are used for purifying utensils and are usually made of solid colors, such as red, orange, or purple. This cloth symbolizes the cordiality of the host and is put on the waist, ready to be folded and used in front of guests.

A fukusa on the waist of a host preparing tea for guests.

The smaller fukusa, called kobukusa, is approximately 6.5”x 6” in size and is typically used as a setting to present utensils and to carry tea bowls. Kobukusa are made of fabrics featuring antique designs that can be divided into three main types: golden brocade (kinran), damask (donsu), and striped cloth (kanto). Designs on some of the kobukusa are known as meibutsugire, or “textiles with special names” or “textiles of special significance.” The originals were mostly brought to Japan from China between the 14^th and 18^th Centuries.

Kitamura Tokusai makes over 400 different patterns of kobukusa

The meibutsugire are significant because these patterns were selected by some of the earliest tea masters who were widely considered to be the top tastemakers of the time. The originals arrived in Japan when the Japanese did not yet have the technology to weave such elaborate types of textiles. The patterns first appeared in Japan in the form of stoles for Zen monks, or as coasters for Buddhist alter fittings and as such, were highly prized.

These snippets of textiles were very valuable in Japan and were only available to the aristocracy, samurai class, and monks. The original meibutsugire often accompanied distinguished (meibutsu) tea containers in the form of pouches, a practice continued to this day. Because these meibutsugire had been stored in wooden boxes by their owners for generations, many are preserved in excellent condition.

“Kofukuji Kinran” (興福寺金襴) a type of gold brocade meibutsugire kobukusa reproduced by Kitamura Tokusai. It depicts golden phoenix on purple twill. The original of this pattern from the 14th century is said to have been used as a fabric divider hanging in front of the alter at Kofukuji temple in Nara.

Kobukusa with Rikyu’s Plum Blossom (紹紦利休こぼれ梅文様）Shoha RIkyu Koboreume Monyo

Yumiko-san explained that Kitamura Tokusai creates over 400 different fabric patterns that are still woven locally in Nishijin, which has been the main center for kimono and textile production in Japan for over 1000 years. “Silk textiles change color when they are seen from different angles because silk threads are naturally triangular in shape like a prism”, she said. Each fukusa is carefully sewn by hand with invisible stitches on three sides.

With the expert guidance of the Kitamuras, Studio KotoKoto has brought a selection of Kitamura Tokusai’s fukusa back to the United States for tea and textile enthusiasts. The story behind each pattern is unique and fascinating and we hope that this will trigger your curiosity into the world of beautiful fukusa textiles.

Map to Kitamura Tokusai fukusa shop in Kyoto ->

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Spring in Melancholic Uji: Asahiyaki Pottery and the First Harvest of Tea

June 18, 2015Kyoto Travels

Each time my tea teacher presented a collection of tea bowls for her students to use, I was invariably drawn to one with a delicate form adorned with a light shade of orange spots. Eventually, I asked my teacher where the bowl came from. She excitedly replied that it was “from Asahiyaki near Kyoto and it is one of my favorite bowls!”

An Asahiyaki tea bowl with kase markings. This bowl uses clay that is high in iron and is also called benikase, or red kase.

I had never heard of Asahiyaki, but a quick search revealed that it is a small pottery kiln located in the city of Uji, just south of Kyoto. With my curiosity piqued, I decided to pay a visit to Uji during a trip to Japan this past spring.

Located between Kyoto and Nara, Uji is easily overlooked by its larger and more famous neighbors. It is only 15 minutes by fast train from Kyoto and its most famous sight is the old Buddhist temple of Byodoin, which is designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The famous Uji bridge is said to have been first built in 646, and rebuilt countless times subsequently. It is mentioned in the classic ‘The Tale of Genji’ written by Murasaki Shikibu in the early years of the 11th Century.

In the tea world though, Uji is a heavyweight and its name is associated with green tea. Uji tea has long been renowned for its high quality and fragrance, and what this translated into during the warring states era of Japanese history was, power, privilege, intense rivalry, and… traffic jams.

During the Edo (1603–1868) era, the Tokugawa Shogun in Tokyo demanded the first tea to be delivered from Uji annually in a tea-jar procession or ochatsubo dochu. These tea jars were given the highest status and wherever the procession went, all the common folk were required to stop whatever they were doing and kneel to the ground in reverence. They were also not allowed to overtake this procession as it made its slow, snobbish way to Tokyo. This most likely created the first-ever seasonal traffic jams in Japanese history.

A sign at a Uji tea shop depicting a tea jar.Uji is only about 20 miles west of the pottery town of Shigaraki, where many tea jars were made.

Not only were the ordinary public inconvenienced annually by these tea processions, but they also had no access to the tea as this was considered to be a precious commodity only available to the ruling elites.

In today’s more egalitarian times, tea is available to all and when I set foot in Uji on an extremely hot day in early June, I enjoyed the sheer pleasure of walking through streets lined with tea shops. Many of them were advertising tea from the first harvest of the year that had just been released.

New tea harvest advertised at the front of a Uji tea shop

I walked along the north bank of the Uji river past the Ujigami Shrine and this led me to the Asahiyaki pottery, where my earlier affinity with my teacher’s tea bowl had inspired me to travel to Uji. The Asahiyaki pottery is housed in a building with a thatched roof and a tasteful fabric sign. At the pottery’s gallery, I was met by Matsubayashi Toshiyuki, the son of the 15^th generation Matsubayashi Hosai currently in charge of the 400 year-old kiln.

Toshiyuki-san explained that Asahiyaki pots are made from clay that is dug locally and matured over many years, sometimes for more than a century. The pots are thrown and fired in a traditional wood-firing kiln. The distinct spots are called kase, which means ‘deer back’ because it resembles the back of a baby deer. The markings are created when the pots are repeatedly exposed to reduction and oxidation in a single firing.

The Asahiyaki pottery gallery in Uji

I told Toshiyuki-san that the gentle form of these pots was especially intriguing. He explained that it probably stemmed from the distinct method of throwing in which a stick is used to turn and create the momentum on the wheel. “The wheel only turns for a limited amount of time with force and the revolution becomes slow very quickly which creates a distinct gentleness,” he explained.

As I left Asahiyaki pottery, I thought that gentleness is indeed the most appropriate word that captures what Uji is about, perhaps together with a little sense of melancholy. This maybe because I had read that Uji’s name originated from the Japanese word ushi, which means sorrow. Or conceivably it was from the historical depiction of Uji in The Tale of Genji -required reading during my school years- where the forsaken in life were exiled.

Looking down towards the Uji river from Ujigami shrine, which is a World Heritage Site

For the next several hours, I strolled around the river bank visiting small shrines and popping into several tea shops. At Rishouen tea shop –recommended by my hosts at Asahiyaki- the kind owner offered me a taste of single origin Uji tea, produced only in limited quantities.

When I finally arrived at Byodoin temple, the highlight for most visitors to the area, it was already late afternoon. I had come to the temple with little in the way of expectation as I had already previewed the building countless times featured on the back of the 10 Yen coin. The famous bronze phoenix on top of the temple roof is also on the 10,000 Yen note, which I see far less often.

The magnificent Byodoin temple in Uji

But when I saw the temple, I was stunned by its sheer exquisiteness. The temple was built in 1053 by Fujiwara no Yorimichi, a powerful noble who lived in the late Heian (794-1185) era. It was constructed to represent a tranquil paradise that the Heian Buddhists dreamed of after death, the heaven on earth imagined by people weary of all the turmoil they endured towards the end of an era. Magnificent colors had been restored in recent repairs to the temple, and the hues seemed to heighten the temple’s sorrowful beauty in the late afternoon light.

San-no-ma of Uji bridge, the part of the city’s famous bridge where water is drawn every October for Uji’s tea festival. It is said that Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the 16th Century daimyo and the country’s second great unifier, had water drawn from the same river for a tea ceremony.

As I left this unexpected paradise and walked back towards the train station, I wished that more buildings had survived from the Heian era. I even ambitiously thought that it would be interesting to visit Uji again after revisiting The Tale of Genji.

If you are ever in Kyoto, I highly recommend that you make the time to visit the quietude of Uji, take a sip of the acclaimed tea, and glimpse the tranquility of a bygone era.

Introducing Kikuchi Yuka: Porcelain Potter Who Stands Out From the Crowd

September 3, 2013Ceramics Kikuchi Yuka

Ceramics by Kikuchi Yuka in our shop ->

In my travels around Japan, I sometimes come across richly talented artists who are little known but whose work stand out from the crowd. One such gifted potter is Kikuchi Yuka, who makes beautiful and functional works with black inlay (zougan) and blue-and-white (sometsuke) porcelain.

Amakusa porcelain dessert plate with black inlay by Kikuchi Yuka

Yuka shines because of her exceptional ability to produce forms that marry contemporary elegance with simplicity and tradition, and in portraying nature through stylized patterns in her blue-and-white porcelain.

What adds to Yuka’s talent was the experience that she gained from learning from one of Japan’s great Kyoto sometsuke masters, Kondo Hiroshi. Kondo was an internationally famous potter and an avid teacher who took her along on his workshops overseas. Yuka spent seven years studying under Kondo and she was his last apprentice before his death in 2012. While Yuka learnt a great deal, it was also a humbling experience and she initially found it difficult to escape her master’s shadow. “For a long time I was bound by my self-inflicted pressure not to disappoint my teacher”, she said.

But with Kondo’s passing, Yuka has finally begun to find her own way, which is allowing her to produce work with style and vigor. “I now think that I should simply make the best pots that I can make”, she said.

Potter Kikuchi Yuka throwing on the wheel at her studio in Minamiaso

Yuka’s zougan works are simple but uniquely elegant vessels. “I design my work to compliment the food, so its presence is felt but does not overwhelm“, she explains. Her sometsuke work, which she only started making recently, is a display of exceptional skill in brush techniques and stylized expressions through shades of blue. It is a fitting homage to her late teacher.

Blue-and-white porcelain mamezara depicting Higo camellia by Kikuchi Yuka

Yuka makes her wares by throwing clay on the wheel, which is trimmed down to the shape she requires. She alters the clay’s hardness depending on the size of the piece that she throws. The size and shape of each pot is determined carefully for its usability. But she says it is difficult to control the shape because when the piece dries, the clay often warps to the way that it was thrown, almost like it has a memory.

Higo camellia is the pride and symbol of Kumamoto, a prefecture often overlooked in Japan.

One reason why Yuka is little known is that her studio and house, Ennyo-gama, is located in the distant village of Minamiaso about 25 miles east of Kumamoto in Kyushu Island. It is on the volcanic caldera of Mt. Aso and is famous for its healing hotsprings. I had the opportunity to meet Yuka at her studio this past spring when I traveled to Kumamoto with a pottery tour group organized by Bill Geisinger and Ben Horiuchi.

Kikuchi Yuka’s studio and kiln Ennyo-gama

All of Yuka’s work is made using porcelain that comes from the Amakusa Islands, which are just off the coast from Kumamoto. Amakusa porcelain is famous for its pure white color, durability, plasticity and minimal shrinkage and slumping when fired. While Amakusa supplies as much as 80 percent of the Kaolin used for porcelain clay production in Japan, porcelain pottery made in Kumamoto is not well known.

Kikuchi Yuka’s showroom in Minamiaso, Kumamoto. All of her work is made using local porcelain from Amakusa.

Yuka said that when she announced in 2008 that she was ending her apprenticeship in Kyoto and moving home to open a studio in Kumamoto, “almost everyone around me asked if there was any pottery there”. Yuka pointed out that while “Kumamoto is best known as the raw material provider and agricultural center of Japan, there is a lot more happening here.” She hopes that her work will help people recognize Kumamoto for its culture, history and tradition, an accolade that it very much deserves. We at Studio Kotokoto will certainly be paying attention to Yuka and Kumamoto as we enjoy the creative elegance and flair that she brings to porcelain pottery.