What comes to mind when you think of Kasama in Ibaraki Prefecture?

It's famous for its Inari shrines and the Prefectural Ceramic Art Museum, and above all, it's a major pottery-producing area that Ibaraki Prefecture can be proud of.

The couple featured this time are a ceramic artist couple who live in Kasama and love the town.

Ms. Sudo is popular for her white artwork called "Otenmon" (pressed dot pattern).

This "pressed dot pattern" is created through a painstaking process: white clay is shaped on a potter's wheel, carved, and then covered with a white slip, onto which countless dots of various sizes are pressed.

When you gaze intently at these countless pressed dots, you get a strange feeling of being drawn into them, and in recent years, the forms have become more three-dimensional and refined, making them even more appealing.

Meanwhile, Higashi has gained a reputation for her works that use seashells as a motif, carving beautiful, continuous patterns of swirling vortices onto surfaces in colors such as white and pale pink.

In recent years, Higashi's works have consistently won awards and been selected for public exhibitions, so I'm sure many pottery enthusiasts are admiring his work.

This exhibition will feature 80 pieces ranging from tea ceremony ceramics to everyday tableware, including a collaborative work by the two close friends, their first attempt at "carving" and "pressing," as well as Sudo's latest unreleased work that is not his signature "pressed dot pattern."

I would be very grateful if you could provide guidance to the potters of Kasama.

Shop owner Takashi Yasuda