Village Potters Of Onda (1966)

traditional Japanese their thatch beams walls of weathered wood and stucco give them that organic quality that makes him seem like a natural part of landscape in contrast to some areas in bustling modern Japan life here is uniquely unhurried off from the rest of the world until 10 years ago a road was built linking it with other towns in the Valley now with daily bus service the children are able to attend a large modern School near the town of Hita 12 miles [Music] away the people of w are warm-hearted and happy and although each Villager has his own distinct personality they all possess a form of Serenity that is hard to Define but which probably Springs in part from a way of life that is both productive and [Music] spying the main activity of the villagers is a production of folk pottery and The Potters still use many of the same methods and techniques which their ancestors use when they first settled here over 250 years ago all of the inhabitants do some farming and grow their own vegetables rice and tea but buy fresh fish and some of their meat from a peddler who is part of his regular rounds comes up to the Village two or three times a week many of the women's chores involve of carrying and they always seem to have a sack or a basket full of something wherever they go but busy as they are with cooking gardening and helping their husbands in the pottery they never seem to rush and usually have time to stop and talk whenever they meet on the Village [Music] Street the farmers use age-old methods to plow and cultivate the land for here high in the Hills arable land is scarce and the season short in the early spring they plant the rice in seed beds and when it reaches a height of 6 in they transplanted into evenly spaced rows spring work in the patties not only means slushing through the mud and water but long hours of bending as each tiny seedling transplanted by hand [Music] they flood the patties with water diverted from a river that flows through the village this river is an integral part of their activities for in addition to being used by the farmers it is used by the children to sail boats and to fish in and by the women to wash clothing and vegetables in and most importantly by The Potters to power the ancient clay Pounders with which they grind their [Music] clay the clay pounder or k USU as they call it consists of a log with a carved out indentation at one end and a large Peg attached at right angles to the other end the hollowed out end is placed under a stream of water and as it fills lowers and empties it makes a constant seesaw motion that causes the appendage end to thump down onto the clay in the pit and pulverize it the Thump Thump of the car USU on Clay echoing through the village sounds like an enormous heartbeat which in a way it is for in the production of their Pottery the K USU and the clay are the core of the [Music] process when the clay is ready they dig it out of the pits and transfer it to a large tank and adding enough water to make a thin slip leave it sit until the sand in the clay has settled to the bottom after which they drain the excess water back to the washing tank to be reused [Music] [Applause] [Music] after the clay has settled to the bottom of the second tank they ladle it into a third tank with a porous bottom of straw matting and leave it to drain and dry to a semi- plastic state after this they set the clay out in these clay pots to dry to a throwing consistency [Music] from beginning to end it takes them about four weeks to mix a batch of clay 2 weeks to grind the dry clay and 2 weeks for the rest of the process all of the clay mixing is done out of doors and when it is ready to throw they carry it inside in these baskets each ball of clay weighs about 25 lb this is a heavy load but typical of the kind of work the women do this is Mrs Sakamoto carrying clay into their Pottery to her husband Haro Sakamoto they prepare the clay for throwing by a wedging technique first used by Potters in the orient and now used by many Western Potters as well most of the pots made in Ona are formed by a combination coiling throwing method they attach coils to a flat slab of clay and rotating the wheel clockwise coil a cylinder then changing the direction of the wheel they throw the pot although this technique is used in some parts of Japan for throwing large pieces here all except the smallest pieces are made in this manner their method of pottery making as well as their glazing and decorating techniques originated in Korea and were introduced into kushu when hideyoshi's Warlords brought Korean Potters back with them during the so-called Pottery Wars of the 16th century this method of forming was used extensively in this part of Japan for many years but now survives only in on and kabara a neighboring Village one can only speculate on how it originated but it may have been developed as a means of coping with poor throwing clay for it allows the cylinder to be formed before any water is [Music] used haruo Sakamoto became the head Potter in his family when his father chuzo retired many years ago they decided to limit the number of Potters in the village to nine families the eldest son usually succeeds the father and begins working in the family Pottery in his early teens so that when the time comes for him to take over from his father he is well [Music] prepared originally The onap Potters supplied the farmers and local towns people with Pottery for their daily needs such as serving bowls pickling jars water jugs sakei Brewing vessels but as these people are now using factorymade containers The Potters are supplying wire to an entirely different type of customer and are beginning to make new shapes using new techniques learned from Potters outside the area here Mr yasi is making small jars for the gift chop Market by throwing off the hump a technique they have only recently begun to use the wheel used at H is a typical Japanese wheel consisting of a heavy throwing head attached to a wooden kick wheel these wheels turn on a pointed hardwood Peg embedded in the earth and floor when The onap Potters throw off the hump as Mr yanas is doing they motorize their kick wheel by attaching a belt from an electric motor to it the motorized wheel is a modern Innovation and is used only when throwing off the hump [Music] although the women do not do any of the actual throwing they do many other things connected with the pottery making such as clay mixing loading the kils and Hauling the wood for firing as well as putting spouts and handles on the pots as Mrs yanas is doing Mrs yanas is wearing MPE the traditional wearing apparel of the people in rural Japan in the early days the MPE were handwoven but are now mass-produced with the traditional patterns printed on the MPE are sturdy and roomy and very suitable for the type of work the women do the villagers work together to promote the sale of their Pottery to fire the large community kilm and to dig the clay but each Potter has his own Workshop where he and his family work independently of the other Potters this is Yuki kakuro preparing to throw a large bowl Mr kobukuro is the brother of haruo Sakamoto and Second Son of chuzo Sakamoto he had always wanted to be a Potter but because of the Potter's strict rule of limiting their number to nine families he was not allowed to start another in on but in the Y kakuro household there were no male heirs to take over the family Pottery thus when Yuki kakuro formerly Yuki Sakamoto married Yoo kobak kuro's daughter he took her name and in turn took over as head of the pottery when his father-in-law retired [Music] some of the younger Potters like yanas seem to specialize in throwing small pots While others like kakuro seem to prefer making larger pieces by their traditional coiling throwing [Music] method traditional pottery was still being used by the local inhabitants of the area when Sakamoto and kakuro first learned how to make it thus the Vitality of the tradition lacking in much folk art today is still very evident in their work however as a present generation of Potters makes the transition from making Pottery to fill the needs of the local people to the making of pots for the Tokyo Kyoto gift Market it's conceivable that the Vitality of their work could diminish as they adopt new forms which have not been refined by generations of tradition [Music] the men usually do all of the decorating and have several methods which they use over and over one of their main methods is the use of white slip this white slip is made from a clay found in the mountains near the village it is similar in composition to the throwing clay and is therefore applied while the pot is [Music] wet one typical pattern is obtained by using a wide brush to dob on thick and thin areas of slip in a repeat motif this type of decoration is often combined with combing or [Music] inzing they use white slip on many different kinds of pots a obtaining buried surfaces by using it plain or by drawing in the wet slip with the [Music] fingers although many of the onap pots are left untrimmed others have to have the excess clay trimmed away and this is done with an L-shaped carving tool when they are firm enough to handle the bottom of the pots are stamped with a Mark that identifies the piece as being on Potter although each stamp has only on marked on it the Potters can be identified by the individual design of their [Music] stamp the pots are sundried in the yard and then glazed Often by the women who are very skillful at balancing the unfired wear on the tips of their fingers in one hand as they pour the glaze with the [Music] other on is one of the few places in Japan where the pitcher is a traditional form however the original shape has undergone some changes in recent years due to the influence of Mr leech the British Potter on glazes are made from five materials wood ash from the kiles rice straw ash from the patties a felspathic rock and an iron bearing Rock from the mountains and copper oxide which is obtained by burning old copper pots in the back of the Kiln they use these materials in various combinations to form seven glazes a transparent glaze two green glazes two brown glazes a yellow glaze and a black glaze in addition to slip decorating another method of decorating often used is glaze over glaze this is done by trailing one glaze over another with a syringe or Narrows spotted [Music] bottle or by dipping a piece which has been glazed with one glaze into a different [Music] glaze or by splashing or pouring one glaze over [Music] another the ks in on are essentially the same as the large climbing or Hillside kils that have been used in the orient for hundreds of years there are four kils in the village three of these are owned privately and have four chambers each while the fourth is a communal Kiln with 12 Chambers the chambers are about 15 ft deep 7 ft high and 6 ft wide and each holds up to 500 pieces of pottery a Kil firing represents about two months work by The Potters and when three or four families have enough Pottery to fill the large Kiln they work together to have a firing as the time for the firing draws nearer the tempo around the village increases as The Potters complete last minute glazing and decorating and carry their pots from their workshops to the Kiln the kils are constructed of fire brick covered with a layer of straw and Clay the Dome of each chamber is about 12 in thick toward the ground the lower part of the kilm wall is thickened and reinforced with large rocks to help take the thrust of the domes thatched or corrugated tin roofs are constructed above the kils to protect them from the [Music] rain until 3 years ago they stack their kils without the use of shelves and although their traditional wear was fairly large they developed some ingenious methods of stacking the plates and bowls are stacked one inside the other with the foot of the one above resting on an unglazed ring left inside each piece to prevent sticking this method of stacking allows them to fire large stacks of plates on one shelf they leave the inside of many of their large pots unglazed so that they can use this space to stack smaller pots in after each chamber has been filled with pots the doors are bricked up a port about 8 in x 10 in is L in the center of each door they throw the wood into the chamber through this port as the Kil is being fired the port is also used as a peephole so that a trained eye can be kept on the pots to determine when the glazes have matured the ashes from the previous firing are swept from the main Firebox and carefully saved to be used in their glazes wood ash has been one of the staple glaze materials of the Orient for the past 2,000 years wood is carried in from the various houses and the fire is started in the main firing chamber the initial fire has to be gentle so that the pots will not break as the last bit of water is dried out of them in order to keep the fire low large pieces of wood are used early in the firing then as more intense heat is needed to build up the temperature smaller and smaller pieces are used this type of Kiln is built on a hillside so that the slope of the Hill can be utilized to provide a natural draft in other words no separate Smoke Stack is required as the whole Kil becomes a stack the fire is started in a the main fire box this Firebox has two ports through which wood is stoked for about 10 hours the heat from here passes into the first chamber B then onto the second chamber C and so on through the kilm so that all of the heat is utilized after 10 hours of firing the first chamber B is red hot the stoking is then continued through the port of this chamber for another 2 hours or until the temperature is high enough to melt the glazes by this this time the second chamber is red hot and the stoking is continued in the same manner and so on up the hill until each chamber has been [Music] fired the firing of the Kiln is to the Potter as the harvesting of the crop is to the farmer the success or failure of all the Potter's efforts for the past 2 months depends on the firing if he fires too fast the pots will break break if he fires too long the glazes will run and if the weather is bad his fire may be too smoky or too slow and so no matter how experienced a Potter may be the 18 or 20 hours spent in firing are tense ones for him [Music] [Music] [Music] after hauling wood and stoking the Kil almost constantly for 18 hours The Potters begin to look very very [Music] tired in the final stages of firing each chamber they use these thin slabs of wood which burst into flame as soon as they come in contact with the fire and release their energy quickly rapidly building up the temperature they allow the Kil to cool for 3 days during which time they clean up their workshop and do odd jobs around the pottery on the day the Kil is open there is a lot of activity in the village as The Potters unload their pots and prepare to pack them for shipping to fill various orders and set up a display of pots for the Kiln visitors [Music] after the Kil is unloaded they always inspect the pots and destroy the wasters before the job of packing is [Music] begun they wrap the small pots individually in rice straw and and then pack them in straw bags to be [Music] shipped large pots are filled with small pots wrapped in straw and then tied with a [Music] rope with loading firing and unloading the Kiln and packing the pots this has been a busy week when a kiln is opened here at on dealers and collectors come from quite a distance to buy pots other pots are sold in nearby tourist towns and many are sent to large department stores and gift shops due to the efforts of the late Mr Yanagi and the mingay society folk art has been popularized both in Japan and abroad their interest has stimulated the market so that many Potters are able to make a living with their craft even though the country has become almost completely industrialized it is not uncommon to see large group exhibition I of folk art in leading department stores throughout [Music] Japan having completed another firing after a few days rest The Potters of w will begin their cycle of work all over again [Music]