Interview with Shinjiro Aika
by 森一馬Of course, every day I visit various ceramic artists and select works directly from them. Each artist has their own stance. Some show me everything that has come out of the kiln, while others show only the pieces they have already carefully selected for themselves.
“To keep only the works one is truly satisfied with, and to break everything else without hesitation.”
This may be the image many people have of a ceramic artist. In reality, however, for many different reasons, it is almost impossibly difficult to live out that ideal exactly as it sounds.
I first learned of Masashiro Aika through his father.
At the time, I was researching Hagi ware and had the opportunity to speak with his father, who has studied Hagi ware deeply. He is also an antique dealer, with a profound knowledge of the history and formation of Hagi ware, as well as its present state. It was only a phone conversation, but he spoke with great passion for more than an hour, carefully explaining the old Hagi piece I had in my possession from many different angles.
Then, just before ending the call, he seemed to remember something and said:
“I understand that you handle contemporary works. My son is making ceramics over in Bizen. His name is Aika. If you ever have the chance, please take a look at his work.”
Immediately after the call, I was still trying to organize in my mind all that I had heard about Hagi ware. But as time passed, the sound of the name “Aika” began to stay with me. If he was the son of someone so deeply passionate and knowledgeable, surely he must be making works with a strong sense of conviction.
But the only clue I had was the word “Aika.” Was it a surname, or a given name? If it was a given name, could the artist be a woman? Yet his father had clearly said “my son.”
With those thoughts in mind, I spent several days searching, and finally arrived at Masashiro Aika.
Aika was born in Hiroshima. He now lives in Kurashiki, with his kiln located in Ushimado. This time, I visited him at his home in Kurashiki.
“As you know, because of my father’s influence, I grew up surrounded by antiques from a young age. There was especially a great deal of old Bizen, but also old Hagi, Shigaraki, and many other works. As I looked at these things, I naturally became interested in ceramics.”
Inside the tea room he showed me, old ceramics and his own works were displayed side by side.
Aika once worked in the culinary field, but in the end, his interest in ceramics proved stronger.
“I came to Okayama to pursue ceramics when I was 22. I studied for two years at the Bizen Ceramic Art Center, and after that I continued studying ceramics while working as an instructor at a pottery class. Around the age of 30, I built an anagama kiln in Ushimado.”
Around that time, he happened to meet Anjin Abe, who lived nearby, and was deeply moved by his work.
“There is no doubt that the old Bizen I had seen since childhood forms the foundation within me. But I do not have the desire to simply copy its shapes or designs as they are. The materials, kilns, and firing methods of old Bizen and those of today are different. Through recent research and through my own experience, I feel that I am gradually beginning to see, little by little, what old Bizen may have been like. I gather clay myself from the mountains, and continue to pursue this through the way I fire the kiln. At the same time, rather than tracing antiques as a method, I want to express in my work the things that have influenced me in the present day, and the experiences I have accumulated. If, as a result, I can create something that carries an atmosphere connected to old Bizen, that is what I hope for.”
He fires once a month, using only a wood kiln.
A single tea bowl may be fired four or five times, and for large jars, he may fire the same piece more than twenty times.
“If I am not satisfied with something, I break it. I know very well that the yield is extremely low and that it is inefficient. But if I do not work this way, I begin to feel that there is no reason for me to make ceramics at all. I want to keep close to me only the things I truly feel are good. If someone else desires such a work, I am genuinely happy. But I am not making things with sales as the premise. Whether I myself can be satisfied with it — that is everything.”
The number of tea bowls he can make in a year is only a handful. Some years, it is fewer than five. There are also jars that take two years to complete. What, then, supports Aika’s remarkably inefficient way of making ceramics?
“More than anything, the time I spend making is the most enjoyable. Especially the time spent firing the kiln. As I converse with the fire, I feel as though I am being purified. And, of course, I truly love tea bowls and antiques. I cannot separate myself from them. So whether or not I am able to make such things, I simply want to keep making them and come even a little closer. That is all.”
To keep only what one is truly satisfied with — it is easy to say, yet for a maker it is perhaps the most difficult thing of all. Aika speaks of it as if it were the most natural thing in the world. That almost innocent sincerity appears directly in his works.
Forms with a refreshing absence of hesitation. Powerful, lustrous surfaces that have received the fire. Deeply emerged kiln effects. In all of these, I felt the complete honesty of the artist, Masashiro Aika.