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Soryu-gama is formed by a Kyoto potter couple. The husband Soryu is the 4th generation of the family potters for Kiyomizu pottery. The wife Madoka is from the 14th generation of the Koishiwara potters family from Kyushu. The combination of Kyo-yaki Pottery (seiji glaze finish) and Koishiwara Pottery (tobi-kanna* feature) forms today’s Soryu-gama pottery style. As these two pottery styles are totally different from each other, Soryu and Madoka work daily and sit side by side at their potters wheels in order to seek for a new expression with the translucent bluish seiji glaze. Through endless attempts of refinements, they successfully merged their signature pottery styles inherited from their families. Their goal is to nurture and present a new and unique pottery style to the world.

* Tobi-kanna: a metal strip tool which is used to carefully slip off the surface of vessels bit by bit by spinning the pottery wheel in order to create the signature pattern of Koishiwara Pottery.

• Japanese woodwork artist based in Nagoya, Japan
• Born in Nagoya in 1977
• Spent years in furniture making, production of Buddhist altars, etc. and experienced in sourcing and handling various types of wood, including the very rare species.
• Started to design and craft wooden tools and objects related to daily life using off-cut wood pieces in recent years because he wants more people to be able to see, admire and live with the beautiful gifts from nature.
• With his exceptional craftsmanship and creativity, he prioritises the designs that naturally show the original wood grains, shapes, and colours in the nicest ways with the aesthetics through his eyes. He always holds a respectful and curious attitude to things that have rich cultural charms and have been holding memories over years.
• We’ll be welcoming Ichikawa to come to Melbourne in November 2024 to curate his solo exhibition! Please stay tuned to our updates on Instagram.

A commitment to materials:

All of the bamboo crafts by Tekara Kobo uses locally grown bamboo from Sado Island, an island near Niigata Prefecture in Japan. Quality blue bamboo is carefully selected and then dried by removing excessive oil components with boiling water and exposing it to sunlight and cold wind. By doing so, the bamboo skin will become glossy and white, and they are also called white bamboo or bleached bamboo. In Japan, this white bamboo is commonly used in making bamboo crafts.

A commitment to aesthetics:

In order to achieve a sophisticated beauty, the artisan uses the traditional knitting technique called "ring arc knitting". By arranging the bamboo stripes in a radial pattern, it forms a shadowy beauty. The dripper is in a conical shape. It is surrounded by bamboo weaving which moderately allows the generation of gas and air. This can avoid interfering with the swelling of coffee powder during the steaming process.

Born in 1984 in Tajimi City in Gifu Prefecture, where is birth land of many famous potters in Japan. Since his junior high school time, he had decided to become a ceramicist. After graduating from the degree of Japanese Fine Arts from Nagoya University in 2008, he studied pottery under Yoshikawa Masamichi.

The forms of his creations are influenced by tea culture, folk arts and modern crafts. What makes his works so special is that he uses a distinctive technique called "kofuki" (i.e. dusting) to apply a thin layer of white soil to the surface in order to create a unique texture. 

Originated from Ibaraki Prefecture, Kazufumi Yamada is the designer behind this artisanal apparel brand. After serving as a pattern designer for "Suzuki Takayuki" for 4.5 years, the brand "The Last Flower of the Afternoon" was established in 2009 in Hokkaido. Based on the concept of "words, feelings, and the passage of time," the story and warmth are expressed through the whole process of making clothes. Some of the materials are dead stock and antique textiles which are sourced from local antique stores. They are then sewn and dyed by hand by experienced textile artisans. Hence, all the works are one-of-a-kind and have different expressions. And so, make-to-order manufacturing is adopted to reduce losses whilst maintaining the uniqueness of products.

Concept behind the brand:

Kazufumi Yamada mentioned that he wants to make clothes that give people a sense of time and an expression of individual story by wearing his clothes. It's just like there are many different emotions, facial expressions, thoughts, or personalities in an individual. Expressing the feelings of the moment without being bound by one concept or taste.

Only using natural fibres is another key concept of the brand. Cotton, linen and silk are the most commonly used materials. By combining various types of materials, Kazufumi Yamada thinks that it becomes a way to bring life to the clothes by themselves because they are very different from ready-made garments.  

Small seashells that hold each other's hands and snuggle up to fill each other's missing parts. Yuriko Fujita, who creates accessories and objects under her artist name "Uqui", finds beauty in shell fragments and stones that no one can see. Accessories that take advantage of the natural shape without shaving them because they are beautiful as they are will bring the scent of rain, forest, and tide. There are Fujita's deep thoughts to the sea.

• The artisan behind WARA is Eri Sakaguchi (based in Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan), who advocates the traditional wabi-sabi philosophy of “Yohaku” – means the beauty of an empty space.
• “WARA” in Japanese means hemp, which is the key material used in making the rope that ties on “Sekimori Stone” (関守石: border stone). “Sekimori Stone” is generally placed on a stepping stone path in a Japanese tea garden to warn the guests against taking the wrong path since ancient time. It’s a fist-sized stone, tied over crosswise with dyed hemp-palm rope or straws.

• By placing a “Sekimori Stone” in an empty space, it’s a perfect method to enjoy and apply the zen philosophy of “Yohaku”. It also makes a feasible space to meditate, calm oneself down, and just to enjoy that slow and quiet moment.
• Nowadays, people also use “Sekimori Stone” as an interior object for decoration, e.g. placing it at the entrance, on a shelf/the centre of a coffee table, above the fireplace, or just simply putting on a work desk. It serves as an object to purify and unwind the tension of a space.

• Below is a little more about the originating source of using a “Sekimori Stone” in Japan: The garden of a Teahouse is called a ro-ji (露地), dew-ground, which has a path leading from the outside world to the Teahouse. A roji should have no flowering plants, but rather, evergreen trees and plants such as ferns, moss, bamboo, etc.  Sen no Rikyū believed that the ideal roji has only moss, koke (苔), covering the ground, but as people might get their feet wet, it has a pathway made of steppingstones, tobi-ishi (飛石), fly-stone. The roji may have paths branching off the main route, and to mark where the guest should not walk, a stone is placed a little way in, indicating that the way is blocked. The stone is called a seki-mori-ishi (関守石), the barrier stone. The stone, about the size of a human heart, is tied with rope, warabi-nawa (蕨縄), fernbrake-rope. There are various ways to tie the rope, but it should have enough rope to form a kind of handle.

After graduating from a Literature background, the opportunity of visiting art museums broadened the horizon of Hirose. Obtaining a part-time job at an art gallery gave her the chance to know about ceramics. Hirose’s ceramic journey was triggered by a ceramic exhibition of British ceramicist Lucie Rie in Tokyo. She was impressed by how amazing the process of making ceramic was after the exhibition. And after that, she decided to start off her career as a ceramicist.

Her creations are mainly inspired by Chinese potteries, British antique ceramics and Japanese folk crafts. Elegance and gentleness are the characteristics of her works. Special blends of glazes give an ambience of a little bit of sparks in daily life.

- Currently living in Ehime Prefecture, Japan

- Completed her traditional bamboo crafts professionalism in Oita Prefecture Bamboo Craft Training Centre in 2019

- Focuses on making practical and beautiful daily life goods using traditional Japanese bamboo weaving methods in Japanese white bamboo

Takeo Suhara is the brand creator and artist of Yuta Craft. He studied metal sculpture in Tokyo in 2002. After completed his study, he started to work in a metal atelier in Meguro in Tokyo. He then began to design brass cutleries in 2008. His works were exhibited in many craft fairs and festivals in Japan.

Design story: Advanced technologies allow factories to manufacture metal works in a mass production with the use of moulds. The artisan Takeo Suhara of Yuta Craft would like to bring back the uniquely beautiful brass works that human used in the old time. Each piece of his works requires more than hundreds times of hand-hammering procedure. Each hit leaves a nostalgia and memorable trace on the piece that only the artisan and the end users would know. Yes, each piece of brass work has its own story.