Masahiro Kishida: The Sensation of Sensing One's Own Sensations

2022/03/29

Standing before a painting in a museum I happened to enter, I stop, and the surrounding sounds fade away.

I am looking at the painting, yet the painting is looking at me; or perhaps my own eyes are watching me look at the painting from above. Then, my body feels light, and my eyes are watching me look at the painting from beneath the floor I stand upon.

There, I realize I seem to be moved by something, and a time begins where I thoroughly examine what I am sensing and observe my own sensations.

Regardless of whether it is a work of art, this may be a sensation that everyone has felt at least once when moved by something. Even now, as I miraculously make a living as a so-called "potter," I often feel that this "sensing of one's own sensations" is both the starting point and the destination of everything.

After graduating from the Faculty of Letters with a Major in Aesthetics and Art History and being in the care of the Juku for two years as an administrative staff member attached to a laboratory, I suddenly decided to enter the path of pottery at the age of 24 and apprenticed in Karatsu for five years. I later became independent and am now in my tenth year.

Usually, I collect soil and stones from the mountains of Karatsu, refine them by hand into clay and glaze, shape and glaze them, and fire them in wood-fired kilns or climbing kilns—making vessels in a way that is essentially unchanged since the Momoyama period. My daily work involves creating tea utensils, sake ware, flower vases, and tableware using the Karatsu ware style of the Momoyama period, while adding my own slight interpretations and nuances.

Working as an artist to create so-called "traditional crafts" is a somewhat perverse task of creating "original imitations," and it is a frightening job where one can fall into a rut or mere imitation if one lets their guard down even slightly.

The only way to counter this is to look clearly at what I have made, discern which parts are alive and which are dead, identify what moves me about my own vessels and what does not, dissect my own sensations, and use that to direct my next creation.

When I recall when I cultivated this "sensation of sensing one's own sensations"—which could be called my lifeline today—the time I spent commuting to Hiyoshi and Mita comes to mind; a time when I was free precisely because I was suspended between anxiety and expectation.

Karatsu Masahiro Kishida