From: jroth@aegis.or.jp (Joel Roth)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.japan
Subject: Interesting things in/near Osaka (2)
Date: 7 Sep 92 08:07:50 GMT
Distribution: world
Organization: Aegis Society, Kyoto Japan

Today I spent an afternoon at the studio of Stewart Holland, an
English ceramic artist who has spent the last nine years pursuing
his profession in Japan with his Japanese wife Kayoko, an artist
herself.

Stewart has built an unusual studio in Nosei Machi about 20km from
Ikeda. The orange colored building with assymetrical windows stands
out from a landscape of paddy fields bordered by steep, forested hills,
in a stark contrast to the traditional and modern-drab two-story
Japanese-style dwellings that pepper this primarily agricultural area.

As you walk up to the front door, you notice that the floor is inlaid
with tiles with hand-painted designs--mostly pictures in blue glaze on
white. The drawings are playful rather than serious. The large wooden
door with a hand-carved wooden handle seems over two meters high.
Kayoko told me that the high door, and the very high ceilinged rooms
were Stewart's response to frequent encounters with low door frames
since coming here.

Stepping inside the showroom, I see pots everywhere of all shape and 
description, as well as some Picasso-esque masks, and a fireplace 
hearth decorated with hand painted tiles. Closer inspection reveals 
that the logs are clay fakes--more of Stewart's fooling around. The 
odd shapes, sizes and orientations of the windows are to show us
scenery without revealing the neighboring buildings.

I walk into the back room for a look. More pottery--Kayoko's work, 
then out a door. There is the artist himself. Stewart is a tall, 
sturdy Englishman with a friendly tussle of dirty blond hair, broad 
face, and a sparkle in his eye. At present his only dress is a pair of 
paint spattered boxer shorts (probably his standard working clothes).  
His hands seem unusually muscular.  Around him are metal working
tools: an arc welder, and some light steel beams painted red with 
rust-preventive paint. Not throwing pots today it seems. He is at work 
building an addition to his studio.  A modest gas-fired kiln stands at 
the center of this unfinished structure. He didn't have one last week 
when an order came, and so he "threw it together." I wonder what he 
used before.

We talk about pottery, and I mention the Japanese potters I know who
spend a couple days every six months firing their work in wood-fueled
kilns.  "There's hardly anything you can do with wood that you can't
do with gas," he declares. "They're just masochists. There's no need
to spend more than a day firing. They just make a religion out of it."
I always like to meet a rebel. I'm still not convinced of the value of
his art yet, but decide to remain sympathetic for the moment.

Stewart also seems to bear some bitterness towards Japan. "If I had
known about the racism here, I never would have come." He told me that
he went to a lot of trouble to design, patent and commercially produce
a silent electric potter's wheel, but that most people are reluctant
to buy anything built by a westerner to do art, even something as 
straightforward as a potter's wheel. He shows me the wheel in Kayoko's 
workshop. A one-half horsepower motor under the wheel starts the wheel 
almost inaudibly when the pedal is depressed. It has the unmistakeable 
feel of high-precision equipment. Below the wheel is a large plastic
sink-like structure that drains the water away from the potter. The
huge mold needed to make it must have cost thousands of dollars.
Stewart obviously believed he had built a better product, but while
people were interested to see it, their purchases were underwhelming.

After getting settled he also found that the area had been a popular
choice for ex-soldiers who had been in Manchuria. Naturally, they
were less than overjoyed to have a gaijin move in amongst them, but
have gotten used to their artistic neighbor.

After a bit of a chat, Stewart decided to meet the other people in our
little group, and amicably agreed to put on a shirt.

Over fruit, tea and cookies, Stewart tells me that all his pottery is
meant for practical use.

"What about the masks?" I ask. "For scaring ill-behaved children?"

No. It turns out he did those in a pottery class he teaches. With the 
economy in Japan expanding at less than breakneck speed, people don't 
seem to have the same interest in buying ceramics, so he is branching 
out into teaching. Many people now would like to make their own
pottery rather than buying it.

One of Stewart's current plans is to convert the showroom into a tea
house of sorts. Then people can come, chat, enjoy the atmosphere, and
actually eat and drink from his pottery without feeling pressure to
buy something. He tells me that when Japanese people, especially a
group of ladies, spend time in the shop, they start to feel obliged to
buy something and get worked up about it.  Stewart doesn't like this.
He'd like to see people comfortable while visiting, and this seemed
the best way to him. It would be quite a trek of the beaten path for a
cup of tea, but worthwhile to see the variety of ceramic art he has
created.

Neither an artist nor art critic myself, I can't say too much about 
the art itself, except some vague subjective impressions. His work 
includes many shapes and sizes, thick-walled, thin-walled, rough, 
smooth, and some really unusual shapes (must be flower vases). They 
give the feeling of someone exploring yet at play; who has yet to 
decide exactly what he likes himself. (Now here goes...)

His glazes were predominantly pale colors: white, light bluegray and
light green.  I especially liked one piece with what seemed to be a
green glaze under a transparent layer with a network of fine cracks.
There was also a huge rough teapot, perhaps for heating water, that looked
to be born of fire alone or thrown by angry beasts without
interference of a human being. A couple of flower vases had a bright
wine-red glaze with fascinating variations in color and hue poured
over a green undercoat.

A large teacup and saucer set that I have near to me now are 
white-over-steelgray inside the cup, and steel gray fading into brown 
on the edges outside the cup and on the saucer. The latter are 
decorated with raised white dots, zigzags, and a stylized insectlike
pattern intermingled with brown dots. The edges of both the saucer and
the cup are shallowly scalloped in places, giving them a kind of arty
look. I don't usually like that sort of stuff, but the cup has a
scallop at just the right place for drinking that gives it a kind of
personality.

When we finished our little chat we walked up the hill with Kayoko to
see the temple where the two of them live. We walked by fields, bamboo
groves, some holly trees, and a hot house for growing roses.

The temple has a lots of trees, a couple of images and a well. It
belongs to the Jodo sect, and is three hundred years old.

Before Stewart and Kayoko moved in it was unoccupied for a year after
the aged monk who had run it retired to a home for the aged. The
temple has Buddhist altar, and the requisite large and small bells and
hollow wooden percussion instrument that a Buddhist priest would play
to accompany invocations.  The walls have some very old ink paintings
and calligraphies.

The temple is owned by a group of families in the village who conduct
worship only during obon and New Year's celebrations. The rest of the
year Kayoko and Stewart have the place pretty much to themselves.

Stewart and Kayoko Holland

Tel. 0727 34 3374
Fax. 0727 34 2279

--
Joel Roth                  >> jroth%aegis.or.jp@unixland.natick.ma.us <<
Brahma Kumaris World          jroth@aegis.or.jp (within Japan)
Spiritual University          1-2-15-501 Nakamichi, Higashi Nari ku,
Raja Yoga Center, Osaka       Osaka, Japan 537, 81-3-971-7251