KANAZAWA, Japan (ANN/THE YOMIURI SHIMBUN) – In the wake of the massive Noto Peninsula Earthquake, a Kanazawa potter has found a unique way to mend not only broken tea bowls but also his spirit.
Ohi Chozaemon XI, 65, initially overwhelmed by the extensive damage caused by the January 1 earthquake, drew inspiration from the resilience of fellow artists in Wajima, Ishikawa Prefecture.
Witnessing their efforts towards reconstruction, he began fusing together fragments of tea bowls from three generations of his family – his grandfather, his father, and himself – to create something entirely new and profoundly meaningful.
“I’m being tested by the heavens, and this is my response,” Ohi said.
Ohi, whose real name is Toshio, is a successor of Ohi ware, a renowned pottery style dating back to the Edo period.
On New Year’s Day, Kanazawa was hit by a tremor with a maximum intensity of upper 5 on the Japanese seismic intensity scale of 7.
Some pieces at the Ohi Museum, which is located in the city centre and displays generations of Ohi ware artists’ works, suffered damage, including one of Ohi’s pieces that won the highest award in the applied fine arts category at the Japan Fine Arts Exhibition.
His workshop, which is located in the suburbs of Kanazawa, was even more heavily damaged. The building tilted, the kiln was damaged and more than 100 tea bowls created by each of the three artists were broken.
Ohi had moved the works of his father, who died in October and was a recipient of the Order of Culture, to the workshop at the end of last year.
“I had kept them in three separate locations to manage the risk, but I moved them [to the workshop] to select items I could donate to the city,” he said. “I felt responsible for my decision.”
Once he returned to the workshop after the quake, Ohi stopped an employee who was trying to clean up the broken pieces of tea bowls. He could not bring himself to throw away the fragments because of the strong feelings he had for his father and grandfather, as well as for his own works. He spent a week sorting through the pieces but had no idea what to do with them.
“I tried to see whether I could change my style by forming works with the broken pieces in front of me,” Ohi said. “But since I didn’t have a functioning kiln, I was in limbo for a while.”
He came up with the idea of combining the works of three generations around February.
Ohi said: “They are not intentionally broken to fit together. It’s possible because it was done by the heavens. If works spanning 70 years are combined, it’s like a time travelling tea bowl.”
He continued to think of ways to make it work every day.
Ohi renewed his determination in March when he visited his friends, who are lacquer craft artists, in Wajima.
“One person’s house burned down, and another’s had been completely destroyed,” he said. “But some of them had already resumed production, and it motivated me to work harder.”
He combined clay with glaze, which he used as glue, but the mixture swelled when it was fired and did not work well. But he figured out that the swelling can be suppressed by adding powdered pieces of broken tea bowls.
In April, he completed four works, which are irregularly shaped and have a collage-type appearance.
The pieces can be seen in Tokyo at Nihombashi Takashimaya department store from June 5 to 10.
Ohi said his life has been marked by unexpected losses, including the early deaths of his younger sister and eldest daughter.
“Compared to them, [what I experienced during the earthquake] was nothing,” Ohi said. “Because I was able to give the heavens a clear answer in response to their test, I feel like my grief will be healed.”
