The art of ceramics

By Victoria Gail-White
Special to The Advertiser

•	'Quiet Beauty:' Fifty Centuries of Japanese Folk Ceramics from the Montgomery Collection' 10 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday 1-5 p.m. Sunday First Rotation, through March 14 Gallery 14 Honolulu Academy of Arts 532-8701 or honoluluacademy.org 'From the Hand:' Five Hawaii Ceramists' Through March 14 Graphic Arts Gallery Honolulu Academy of Arts

Before its arrival at the Honolulu Academy of Arts, "Quiet Beauty: Fifty Centuries of Japanese Folk Ceramics from the Montgomery Collection" premiered at the Bard Graduate Center in New York City. Jeffrey Montgomery's collection, more than 25 years in the making and one of the most important collections outside of Japan, spans 5,000 years and showcases 100 ceramic works arranged in chronological order. This exhibit has two rotations.

The first rotation, showing through March 14, is a ceramic concord of form and function (plates, sake bottles, flower vases, tea cups) and display objects (Depicting Hotei, God of Happiness, Bizen Ware Okimono from the Edo period, 18-19c.) as well as decoratively functional pieces (the Seto Ware Hand Warmer on the Form of a Monkey, Edo Period).

The names and beauty of the glazes are as delightful as the forms. The Narush”ma Wide Mouth Jar (1870) has a bluish white glaze called namako (sea slug) that oozes down its sides in big controlled drips. In the Shigarahi ware, a "Sh™chž Decanter" wears a tiger's fur glaze while an amazing "sharkskin" glaze (that looks like tiny beads of brown glass) covers a gourd-shaped "Sake Bottle."

An obvious playfulness in the blue-and-white section of porcelain Arita ware (19th century) features five dishes with hand-painted rats and radishes. Fortunately, another remarkable aspect of the exhibit is the wealth of information posted alongside the work. Why would anyone want to eat off plates with rats painted on them? Evidently, according to the placard, rats are auspicious in Japan, China and Korea. If you have enough food to feed your family, with a little left over for rats to eat, you are considered fortunate.

It would be a treat to see the "Incense Burner" (1765) functioning on regular intervals in the museum. Incense would burn inside the body of this mythical Chinese lion and billow smoke out of its nostrils and mouth.

Japan's ceramic history is the oldest in the world, yet with industrialization, it almost faded into obscurity.

A majority of Japan's folk kilns were closed or closing by the end of the 19th century. The Mingei Movement set out to take back what industrialization and the manufacturing of cheap mass-produced products took away — the human touch and spirit and an appreciation of the tradition and heritage these crafts represented.

In 1925, Soetsu Yanagi, a philosopher and art critic, created a concept based on the Japanese word mingei, meaning art of the common people or folk art.

From this concept, the Mingei Movement began (it is still strong today), with the help of two potter friends Shoji Hamada and Kanjiro Kawai, that is focused on appreciation and the resurrection of high-quality hand-made functional crafts for everyday use.

Works by Hamada and Kawai are included in this collection as well as work by Bernard Leach of England and Warren McKenzie of the United States. Hamada, and potters Jiro Kinjo and Tatsuz™ Shimaoka, have been designated Living National Treasures by the Japanese Government.

The short walk from Gallery 14 to the Graphic Arts Gallery affords ample time to assimilate the aesthetic of Japanese folk-art ceramics — time which proves beneficial in viewing the more contemporary works in "From the Hand: Five Hawai'i Ceramists."

The inspiring principles of the Mingei Movement, evident in the work of five Hawai'i ceramists — Daven Hee, Kauka De Silva, Hideo Okino, Reid Ozaki and Yukio Ozaki — bring the concept home.

The inviting and attractive installation of their functional ceramic wares — mounted on white walls and on 10 low, driftwood-like tables — enhances and perpetuates an understanding of the major influence this movement has had on the local ceramic scene.

Hee's focus is on repetition, perfection and variations of shape. His teapots, plates, and cylinders, dressed in earthy-colored glazes, remind us of how significant the simple beauty of a functional object is.

De Silva's pieces not only address concepts of shape and function but also use glazes made from lehua and lauhala ash and Kaimuki clay.

He integrates another folk art tradition from Hawai'i (the stamping of kapa cloth) into his bowls and platters by impressing the designs of kapa stamps into the clay. His plates are large enough (20 to 30 inches across) to accommodate serving kaukau for a large lu'au.

The slab-built, glazed and soda-fired square plates by Okino have colors that range from soft beige to sienna. In "Five Square Dishes with Raised Sides" and other dishes that flank these pieces on the wall, the glaze work incorporates aspects of nature such as a rising moon and blades of grass.

Reid Ozaki's display of elegant black vases is perfectly suited for another traditional Japanese art form: flower arranging. In the altered and glazed "Three Stone Vases," the opening for the flower is off to the side.

The most colorful section of this exhibit belongs to Yukio Ozaki. His labor intensive "Two Wall Plaques" and "Flower Set" showcase another folk art tradition: hand-built pieces made with different colored clays that are joined together and form marbleized patterns. His large platters, flat bowls and "Dragonfin Vase" are good examples of his technical skill and also his sense of humor.