Japan journey inspires Island ceramists

By Virginia Wageman
Advertiser Art Critic

Ronald FitzGerald based the forms of his tall vessels on the shapes of bottles he saw when visiting studios and galleries in Japan. Etsuko Douglass Re-Visions Bibelot Gallery, 1130 Koko Head Ave. Through May 11. 738-0368.

Douglass is a ceramist. She hails from Nagoya in Aichi prefecture, one of Japan's foremost pottery-making centers. This is the second tour she's led, and many of the participants were repeats.

The group visited museums, potters' studios and galleries in Seto and Tokoname, both towns near Nagoya and sites of historic kilns. Douglass saw the trip as an opportunity to introduce her friends in Japan to Americans, and vice versa. Besides the cultural exchange, also exchanged was artistic vision. When the group came home, each artist created work inspired by experiences in Japan. These works, primarily ceramics, are on view at Bibelot Gallery until May 11.

What has been termed "Japan's worship of the imperfect" is evident in the ceramics on view, in their asymmetrical shapes and irregular glazes. Also evident is a strong leaning toward the peasant ware of Japan, with natural glazes and textures and simple decorations. Cracks and glaze imperfections serve to enhance the style.

For these potters, expression is more important than technique, or at least is deeply wound up with technique, resulting in a freedom not usually found in Western ceramic wares.

Marie Kodama, for instance, relaxes all the rules in her whimsical flowers and stacked hearts, as well as in an irregular box for "saving yen for next trip." Their charm derives from their imperfections.

The slabs of clay that make up a raku-fired vessel by Nori Hoshijo are undisguised, with overlappings left rough and uneven. Her free-form black and white vessels have uneven, jagged lips where the clay was torn away before firing.

Ronald FitzGerald has made a lot of bottles and jugs since he returned from Japan, inspired by the forms he saw there. Especially compelling are two elongated bottles that suggest the form of graceful figures clad in flowing robes. He also made a group of ema (Japanese temple offerings), traditionally made of wood so that they might be burned and their good wishes carried to heaven. FitzGerald's clay ema have, of course, already been fired, so perhaps they are imbued with mystical power.

Two things especially impressed Etsuko Douglass on the trip: the number of tansu-like storage areas built beneath stairways in old houses, and ceramic lamps made by a potter in Tokoname. Inspired by these, she has made a pair of fanciful lamps in the form of tansu, with light emerging through drawer-handle slits. The ashy brown glaze suggests old wooden structures like the ones in the photo album from the trip that the artists have left in the gallery.

One lamp is decorated with Mount Olomana and the Ko'olaus beneath a crescent moon, representing the coming together of East and West. The other depicts the H-3 Freeway.

There is a magnificent bowl with a rich black glaze by Stephanie Teruya. Manny Voulgaropolos' blue-glazed, rectangular platter, inspired by the Nagoya River, has an uneven surface suggestive of flowing water. Dennis Leong derived the idea for his handbuilt clay figure of a praying monk from people he saw in Japan.

Cathy Miyamoto's pit-fired cats are remarkable for their ashy gray and brown glazes, bringing warmth and depth to the stylized forms. Another "animal person," Rochelle Lum, has created a tea-drinking rabbit and a rabbit and cat tourist couple, her personified animals representing the trip's meaning for her.

Lefty Higuchi made traditional Japanese functional pottery, a tea bowl and a tofu plate. Shelle Avecilla's beautifully glazed sake sets and Elizabeth Clark's small raku bowl with lid are both lovely expressions of the Japanese admiration of the irregular and imperfect. Two of the artists documented their Japan trip with pictures, Paul Kodama with black-and-white photographs of temples and Esther Nowell with delightful watercolor sketches of places visited.

What's so appealing about this show is the overall freshness of the pieces and the obvious sense of pleasure each artist has had in working through ideas derived from the trip. H-3 on a tansu, indeed!

Virginia Wageman can be reached at VWageman@aol.com.