Collection: Genta Yamamoto

Genta Yamamoto | 山本源太

Hoshino, Fukuoka, Japan

Genta had only started out as a potter when he moved to Hoshino village fifty years ago, urged by his mentor in poetry Yutaka Maruyama to revive the style of pottery there. “He saw something in my poetry back when I was in my twenties, and was convinced that I would persist in this challenge. 

The kilns of Hoshino Yaki had long disappeared since the 19th century, so he had to start with studying the objects he found in the old farm houses in the area. 

Experimenting with the clays of the local mountain, making numerous futile trials and errors, he gradually discovered the definitive style that was coming from the attributes of soils and plants growing in the area. 

“I named the kind of glaze Yuhi Yaki, a sunset glaze. See? When you pour water in this cup, it gleams in a golden shade.”

The whole process of Genta’s creation is in a holistic cycle – he goes into the mountain to source the mud, spends a few years to make clay from it, shapes the pottery on a manual wheel, fires them in the brick kiln with pine logs, and making glazes from plant ash and purified river sand. He plays with the variability of the outcome, affected by multi-angled elements like the temperature, climate, combination of the clay and the glaze, where you put them in the kiln, timing of each process, etc, etc. “Since I’m experienced enough now, I can get around 80% of the outcome as I aimed at. It’s never 100%, because you leave the finishing touch to the mercy of nature. On the other hand, by small chance, you find some pieces beyond your intention. It’s like working with magic.”

Genta’s favorite motifs in both his poetry and the ceramic works are inspired by astronomy. One of his signature pieces is shaped like a planet, which was originally commissioned by his late mentor Maruyama to be used as his own urn. “We are all made of star materials, after all. We come from this star earth, and go back to it after a lifetime, just like my potteries do.”