How a Japanese Town Keeps its 800 Year Pottery Tradition Alive

hello world it feels like everywhere i go in japan you can find traditions that have been followed for hundreds of years in tamba yama it's no exception tambayaki our tombow air is an 800 year old tradition that is still carried on today by about 60 kilns located around the tachikui district what is often the case when hearing about these kinds of traditional practices is that you find out it's a dying craft so it's encouraging to hear that this group of potters have not only been able to keep the craft alive generation after generation but they are still thriving to this day what's the secret [Music] a technological improvement they made happened around 1611 when they started constructing korean style kilns which are locally called noborigama or in english a climbing kiln this enabled the mass production of pottery around this era the edo period they also started making sake bottles and tea ceramics and if we now look at tambayaki today you'll see a lot of very practical everyday items however the second reason i believe that the tradition is still going strong is because the artists are allowed to be creative there are two aspects to this one is that they really can make whatever they want the second is that even when they're creating practical items they're each doing it with their own [Music] style to see some of the more traditional tambayaki i visited toshihiko shimizu who has been making pottery for 50 years [Music] like many in the profession his son is also continuing the tradition [Music] one thing you'll notice is that despite being a family business the son's pottery is quite different from his father's [Music] so while he's following tradition he's also breaking from it what i found surprising was that while there was a cooperative factory where you could get potter's clay from there are potters that are still searching the local areas and gathering their own to get the precise texture they like at its most basic making pottery is quite simple get the clay add water and create whatever you like [Music] okay [Music] foreign [Music] although of course the normal steps they take are a bit more complex i think what the area has done well is to market their products and come together to represent the whole area as a brand you can visit potter's alley and see over 50 artists represented spots are very affordable to rent and the location of each artist wears are rotated so that everyone gets a chance at exposure there's also a group of eight that got together to create t s you know [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] is a successor to her father who's on the left i love that she worried about the little bucket in the way in an otherwise immaculate studio especially when i had just visited shimizu-san with stuff everywhere [Music] and like and his son and her father have different styles she went to an art school and likes to make designs on her pottery [Music] [Music] [Music] me i visited yet another father-son duo some of the items made by onishi-san's father are very thin and light bear cups his son likes his pottery rougher and more raw he showed me the climbing kiln [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] okay foreign [Music] the reason i say this is that despite being a famous local artist he didn't say a word about his work instead he was interested in showing me things like his water basin i asked him about the flow of water and he cut out a screwdriver just to adjust it [Laughter] i love how he had this new really nice place but kept the water pipe rustic on purpose here's the outside view and here's the inside view quite a contrast right [Music] his work also ranges from the refined to the raw i wish i had time to fly my drone here but his property is quite large and he even bought his own excavator in order to do landscaping himself his reason for doing it himself was that if you hire some people a few times it's just as expensive as the excavator so why not buy one and operate it yourself he also has his collection of clay and a forklift of course he was more than happy to demonstrate it in action [Music] for the pottery you see here it's designed by him and made by his apprentices i personally bought this bowl for my daily yogurt and muesli i had actually first encountered it at the restaurant i ate at the night before where it was filled with miso soup all of the restaurants courses were served using local tambayaki when we stopped to eat lunch i again found myself eating on art we were at luna papados whose owner suzuki-san became a super fan of masahiko-san he liked the tambayaki and area so much that he decided to open a restaurant making food for the dishes [Music] me on our last day in the area tamba sasayama city my wife and i visited one of the countless shops that sell tambayaki and picked out some of our favorites for me i love cats so i couldn't resist these little plates my wife who clearly doesn't love her cats as much as i do picked out the sake bottle and cup although since she never drinks sake at home she's going to use this as a milk pitcher to be served with tea or a salad dressing container how did the 800 year old tradition of tambayaki stay alive to me it seems they were able to keep a balance between the artist's creativity and the needs of the people they made their wares for the artists were also able to work together without getting in each other's way in some ways i related to the artisans i met i won't compare my work to theirs i'm only starting out but i've always felt that yeah i have to create videos that the viewers will be interested in watching so i try and do that but i also make videos just for me that satisfy my curiosity satiate my creativity and i've been fortunate enough that you have continued to watch the variety of videos i make so thanks for watching how are locals in your area keeping traditions alive [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] see you next time peace

Channel: Life Where I'm From

Views: 86,292

Rating: 4.9897189 out of 5

Keywords: japanese pottery making, japanese pottery documentary, japanese pottery village, japanese pottery, tambayaki, tanbayaki, tambasasayama, life where i'm from, Japanes pottery, Japanes pottery making, Japanes pottery village, japanese pottery documenatry, japanese pottery history, life where im from

Id: r9uNWxBpJuE

Length: 14min 53sec (893 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 12 2021