Ruba Katrib
Chief Curator and Director of Curatorial Affairs at MoMA PS1
Words SUBIN ANDERSON
Photography NIK VAN DER GIESEN
With each passing day, nature seems to draw a little closer into Masahiko Yamamoto’s vessels. In the rural mountain village of Soni, Nara Prefecture, Japan, the seasons arrive with their own sounds and colors. Each morning, Yamamoto takes walks to the mountains, watching the landscape change with the weather, the fields, and the light. He first visited Soni as a child and still remembers a single flower with a strange shape unlike anything he had seen before. Years later, he came back to the village, this time to live and work closer to nature.
His vessels carry rough surfaces, earthly colors, intricate patterns and irregular forms. Working without drawings, he begins each piece trusting his intuition to know when to stop. The life in Soni, and the memories he has cherished over the years all find their way into his works as do birds, elephants, and bulls that reflect his admiration for living creatures.
At a time when so much of life happens at a distance from the natural world, Yamamoto’s work reminds us of the beauty of what surrounds us. In our conversation, he shares the path that brought him to ceramics and the sense of purpose and curiosity that making has brought to his life.
SUBIN ANDERSON: Do you have any rules when it comes to making?
MASAHIKO YAMAMOTO: I don’t want to become too comfortable with the work, because I want to keep the sense of excitement. When you become familiar with what you do and naturally get better at it, whether it’s working on the wheel, painting, or shaping objects, you also start to lose some of the excitement and innocence you once had at the beginning. So I constantly try to look for parts of myself that I haven’t discovered yet, and to make something that has a character of its own.
SA: How did you get interested in ceramics?
MY: When I was a teenager, I was very interested in fashion, although I never considered pursuing it as a career. I simply enjoyed it. I began working at clothing stores in Osaka, and while I enjoyed the experience, I eventually found the work somewhat repetitive. After three years, I realized that it was not something I wanted to continue.
Ceramics have always been part of my life, as both my father and grandfather are ceramic artists, but I had never thought about becoming one myself. After leaving my job, I decided to attend a ceramics school run by my father, and I found myself immediately drawn to the work. I liked that ceramics was something I could do independently, and I was especially attracted to the way it allowed me to work closely with nature.
I later enrolled in a training school in Kyoto. About six months into the program, my teacher suggested that I apprentice under Mori Murata. I was particularly interested in learning through hands-on experience in a real working environment, so I decided to leave the school and spend three years as an apprentice.
“That’s the nature of ceramics. It can become something less than you imagined, or far beyond it, and hesitation can cause the clay to die. In the end, I simply have to trust my experience and intuition.”
Masahiko Yamamoto
SA: And what was the first work you made?
MY: In October 2006, I returned to Nara and began working at my father’s ceramics school. I had decided to hold my first solo exhibition in March 2007, so I remember working with complete focus and really enjoying the feeling of finally being able to make things of my own.
At the time, I often made vessels in turquoise blue. Seeing something I had made myself become a work of art, and knowing that people wanted it, was very rewarding.
SA: When you begin a piece, how much of it do you already have in mind?
MY: I never start with a drawing or a plan. But I do have a general idea of which kiln I will use and what kind of landscape or atmosphere I want the work to arrive at. I start by working with clay and look for the moment when I know it’s time to stop. Sometimes it reaches that point as imagined, and sometimes it doesn’t.
That’s the nature of ceramics. It can become something less than you imagined, or far beyond it, and hesitation can cause the clay to die. In the end, I simply have to trust my experience and intuition.
SA: Then what do you trust most when you’re uncertain?
MY: That there are always possibilities. There is no end to what exists outside of our universe, and I feel the same is true within me. I don’t think there is a dead end.
SA: You moved to Soni in 2017. What was it about this place that made you want to settle here?
MY: Before moving to Soni, my studio was in a converted factory. There was a lot of road development happening around the area, and over time, I watched the open landscape gradually disappear. I also began to notice that there were fewer sounds of living things around me.
That made me want to find a place where I could live and work closer to nature, and that’s how I came across this area. I had visited Soni with my family when I was young, and I still remember seeing a single flower there with a strange shape, unlike anything I had seen before. It was already a place that held a special memory for me, and eventually, I decided to settle here. I was grateful to find a place that felt connected to the kind of environment I had been looking for.
SA: And what’s everyday life like for you?
MY: Every morning, I take walks to the mountains just behind my home with my dog. In spring, the wild hydrangeas bloom, in summer, I go into the river with my children, and in autumn, the mountains change color. Then, in winter, the whole area is covered in snow. Sometimes during my walks, I even come across deer or hear their calls echoing through the mountains.
The Soni River runs through the center of the village, and around the time of rice planting, the fields fill with water, and green rice plants stretch out as far as you can see, with the mountains behind them. Sometimes I even exchange vegetables and rice for tableware that I’ve made.
In the part of Soni where we live, called Yamākasu, there’s a place called Kasuga Shrine. Every autumn, we hold an annual festival there. We begin by cleaning the shrine grounds and preparing offerings, then we perform a lion dance as part of the ceremony. In summer, we gather around six Jizō statues, Buddhist figures that sit beneath a huge rock in the mountains, where we cleanse ourselves and pray.
Living among these practices, which have been passed down through generations, has made me feel very connected to the land and the people who live here. Living here is also a way of feeling connected to the wider world for me.
SA: Would you say you’re particularly sensitive to changes in seasons?
MY: I am very aware of the changing seasons. Living so close to nature, I can feel the change simply by opening the window. In spring, the cherry tree in the garden blooms, and the frogs sing in the rice fields filled with water. In summer, countless fireflies appear, their light almost like a pattern. The sound of cicadas echoes everywhere. In autumn, the pampas grass on the highlands glows gold. In winter, we light the wood-burning stove against the cold, and the first snow begins to fall.
These all happen naturally, and the plants and animals follow their own rhythms. Using weeds in the firing process, turning wood into ash for glaze, and digging for clay all begin with nature. One of my series, for example, can only be made during a limited period, from May, when the weeds begin to grow thickly, until around the end of September. When I work with nature in a humble and curious way, it becomes part of the making.
(Read the full interview from Issue 11)
Related Stories
Chief Curator and Director of Curatorial Affairs at MoMA PS1
Flipping the World Upside Down
Defining the next era of Marian Goodman Gallery
In conversation with Oliver Bell
Breathing Life into Oneself
Poetics of Longing