笠間焼き · Apprenticing traditional ceramics in Kasama Japan. In 2014, I moved to the Japan countryside to teach English. In my first year of teaching, a fellow teacher introduced me to the Kobayashi family. I started visiting their studio every weekend, eventually becomig a full-time apprentice to Michio Kobayashi, a third-generation master potter, at his studio in Kasama, Ibaraki. 

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A lot of my design ethos and outlook is influenced by these years living close to the land. Everything in the house was crafted by hand from the bowls to the door knobs. Our food came from the garden. Kobayashi-sensei had customers who had been coming back for over 60 years. People formed relationships with the objects, comissioning them for key life events. This attention to detail, value on living and craft, and designing objects with natural materials in symbiosis with the land. 

Trimming bowls with Tatsuki

Greenware ready for first firing

Exploring movement in ceramics, defying function

Greenware ready for first firing

Planning out glaze tests

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