The historic Mino region. Click for a larger image.

Tajimi City is situated in a region of Japan that was historically called Mino. The clays found here are excellent for pottery making. Tajimi kilns have produced some of the finest pottery in Japan for a millennium, and the region is still producing half of the total output of ceramics in Japan. If you are passionate about Japanese ceramics and would like to go exploring yourself, Tajimi is a good place to start your journey.

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the CERAMIC PARK MINO museum is a vast, modern space where you can enjoy both Japanese and international ceramics and other design. Pictured is "Prosperity" by Caroline Cheng of the People's Republic of China. It won the bronze award at The 11th International Ceramics Competition Mino, Japan Exhibition.

The popular MOSAIC TILE MUSEUM is "a unique, imagination-stimulating museum leveraging local industry strengths."

Take a journey through history to modern times at the MINO CERAMIC ART MUSEUM. Pictured is a shallow bowl in Shino style. 16th - 17th century. Image courtesy of Mino Ceramic Art Museum.

Like the other museums in this line-up the ICHINOKURA SAKAZUKI ART MUSEUM offer a wealth of courses and workshops for those who want to go beyond merely viewing pottery. Ichinokura is a village with a 1000 year long pottery tradition.

​A guide to a ceramics town

​It was only recently that I realised that my house in Onada village, Tajimi, is sitting on top of one of the most fascinating and important sites in the history of Japanese pottery. Discoveries over the last couple of decades seem to indicate that ancient kilns here produced tea bowls for some of the most powerful and influential people in Japan, and helped set the trend towards the world famous wabi-sabi style of pottery for which Japan is famous today. The city of Tajimi has spent considerable time and resources to document and preserve its heritage. You will find many excellent museums in a relatively small area. Today we will provide you with a guide to exploring the ceramic treats of this area yourself.

finding your bearings

Here are the google map links to the four museums we present this time. If you type it your location you will get directions from Google:

• Mino Ceramic Art Museum, Tajimi: Map
• Ceramic Park Mino: Map
• Ichinokura Sakazui Art Museum and the Kobegama Kiln: Map
• The Mosaic Tile Museum: Map

Mino Ceramic Art Museum, Tajimi

​Mino Ceramic Art Museum, Tajimi offers a rich display of Mino pottery from historic times to present day. The museum offers a very silent, pleasant experience where you can view classic Japanese pottery for which the region is famous. Perhaps best known internationally is Shino ware, which appeared in the region during what many regard to be the golden age of Japanese pottery. Equally famous, at least in Japan, is the Oribe style, which is also well represented. There is also Setoguro and Kiseto ware, and many others, as well as works by Tajimi’s Living National Treasures and modern artists. All this can be enjoyed in the permanent exhibitions as well as the temporary ones, which are held four to five times a year. In this article, however, I would like to focus more on the experiences you can have at the museum.

drink tea from a priceless bowl

Pottery is made to be used and enjoyed. Yes, many of the tea bowls we present here are almost frightfully valuable, but what good are they in a box? That is the thinking of the people at Mino Ceramic Art Museum, Tajimi in Tajimi. We visited them at the day of this writing and came back with lots of images to share with you. Maybe the one I would like you to see the most is the one linked here below. It is a 360° VR still image best viewed in a VR headset, but even if you don't own one I think it still conveys some of the experience of drinking tea from one of the fantastic bowls in the museum. 

Experience in 360 VR

When we arrived at the museum we were given a menu of bowls to choose from - some classic designs, some modern ones. I chose a Shino ware bowl as I know Shino is very popular among our users. Just as brilliant and famous, however, are the Oribe bowls, and there are also pieces made by modern artists to choose from. The tea drinking experience itself is very relaxed, unlike a classic Japanese tea ceremony. The experience is focused on the tea bowls themselves.

One of the bowls I tried was a classic Oribe ware chawan. It is a classic Kuro Oribe (black Oribe) design made by Noritoshi Takagi.

Many of the chawan (tea bowls) you can try are works by people recognized as Living National Treasures by the Japanese government. Tajimi has had six of them so far. The bowls you can try are all made by Mino potters active in the cities of Tajimi, Kani, Toki and Mizunami. A work by the hand of any of these people will fetch a very high prize if put on the market. I was afraid to drop one, but fortunately the bowls are made to fit into your hand comfortably and very securely.

This beautiful Aoiro (indigo blue) Shino chawan is a modern design created by Sakai Hiroshi.

I tried a bowl by one of Tajimi's most famous potters - Takuo Kato. It is a Lustreware chawan, inspired by Persian persion tradition. This islamic pottery style flourished from from the 9th to the 14th century.

I feared I would drop one of these priceless bowls and become ruined. Fortunately they are all very ergonomic in design and easy to hold.

Kato's works are exhibited in an excellent little museum at the Kobe kiln in Tajimi. It is located in Ichinokura village, which is also presented in this article.

The session includes an opportunity to get familiar with original Mino pottery from findings in the region. The shards were mostly from the 16th and 17th centuries. There were many manufacturing mistakes at the firings. One example is shown in the video - a plate has remnants of another piece of pottery stuck to its surface and was discarded after the firing. Broken pottery like this is scattered in the earth around the old kilns, and has remained in the ground hundreds of years after the kilns crumbled and vanished.

Mino Ceramic Art Museum, Tajimi offers a rich display of Mino pottery from historic times to present day. The museum has two permanent exhibitions. “Mino ware: a 1300 year story” (ja:「美濃焼1300年の流れ」takes you on a journey from the Sueki ware of the Asakusa era to the works of six Living National Treasures. These Tajimi potters are certified as Preservers of Important Intangible Cultural Properties (重要無形文化財保持者 Jūyō Mukei Bunkazai Hojisha) by the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. 

There is also the “Toyozo Arakawa Exhibition Room”. Toyozō Arakawa (ja: 荒川 豊蔵, 1894 - 1985) is one of the six Living National Treasures and a giant in the world of Japanese pottery. He proved that Shino and Oribe glazed pottery of the Momoyama and early Edo period in Japan had been manufactured in Mino - the historic name for the region where Tajimi is located - rather than in the Seto area. Given the popularity of Shino internationally this should interest many pottery enthusiasts. The many works displayed in the room were donated by another of the six Living National Treasures, Kōzō Katō (ja: 加藤孝造, 1935 - ), who studied under Arakawa.

The Museum Shop offers a wide variety of Mino ware, from the classic to the modern.

Information

​Location
〒507-0801 1-9-27, Higashimachi, Tajimi-shi, Gifu
TEL 0572-23-1191
Website
​www.tajimi-bunka.or.jp/minoyaki_museum/
E-mail
minoyaki@tajimi-bunka.or.jp
Opening hours
From 9:00 to 17:00, admission until 16:30
Closed on
Mondays. When Monday is a national holiday the museum is closed on the following weekday. Year-end (12/28 - 1/3).
Admission
Adults 310 yen, university students 210 yen, high school students and Persons with disabilities and a companion are admitted free of charge

Ceramic park mino

Ceramic Park Mino is a vast complex, including not only art exhibition areas but also commercial fair facilities, a restaurant and tea rooms, a pottery practice studio, educational facilities, and a promenade and viewing platform. Among the experiences you can have is the beautiful tea room where people can enjoy a tea ceremony in a modern yet classical Japanese setting. The tea room is surrounded by water. We took part in a tea ceremony which was more formal in tone than the one at Mino Ceramic Art Museum, Tajimi, but still very friendly and intimate. It was performed by professionals dressed in beautiful kimonos. The tea bowls were made by a Living National Treasure, Hajime Katō (1900 – 1968). We were told that the bowls used this time had been made sometime around 1935. 

Experience in 360 VR

Events like this require more planning than the experience offered by Mino Ceramic Art Museum, Tajimi, so make sure to make an inquiry about the schedule. You can contact us at any time and we will help you out. There are two tea rooms, one larger which covers 12 tatami mats while the other room, with its space of 4 and half tatami mats, caters for more intimate gatherings.

​Pottery experiences offered at the Ceramic Park

Ceramic Park Mino offers a variety of experiences for people who want to try their hand at pottery. There are workshops for those of you who would like to try painting pottery or shaping the raw clay by hand. The museum also offer special courses for handicapped people and senior citizens.

The museum of modern ceramics

Under the theme of “ceramics today”, Ceramic Park present modern-day objects of pottery and ceramics from Japan and overseas in a variety of special exhibitions.

Ceramics Exhibitions

The vast facilities include an open space that can be used for cultural events and to hold trade fairs dedicated to products used in daily life, centering on ceramics. Many people from Japan and abroad gather here for the International Ceramics Festival Mino. With an area of 2,237 sqm, this is the largest venue of its type in Gifu prefecture. Please inquire about the exhibition schedule.

the international ceramics festival, mino

If you are a ceramics artist you may want to enter the international ceramics festival held by the museum. The museum hosts a large ceramics competition, the International Ceramics Competition MINO. This triennale competition was last held in 2017, and the next is planned to the autumn of 2020. Entry calls will begin in mid 2019. The organizers present the event as follows: 

​Since the first festival in 1986, the International Ceramics Festival Mino is held with the aim of supporting the growth of the ceramics industry and the enhancement of culture through the global exchange of ceramics design and culture with its theme of "International exchange of soil and flame - From You, From Now, From Here. The festival has been held every three years as a triennale, and this will be the 10th such event.

"The International Ceramics Competition Mino, Japan" is the main event of the festival. In the competition in 2011 we had an amazing 2,777 entries from 57 countries and areas around the world. This event is an internationally recognized world-class ceramic competition and all selected excellent works will be exhibited at Ceramic Park MINO.

Information

Location
Ceramics Park MINO
4-2-5 Higashi-machi,Tajimi City Gifu Japan 507-0801
Phone +81-572-28-3200
Fax +81-572-28-3201
Website
bit.ly/2OcD2Hd
Website for the International Ceramics Festival Mino
​www.icfmino.com/english/outline/
E-mail
zaidan@cpm-gifu.jp
Access by public transportation and car
See official site

​Ichinokura sakazuki art museum and the kobegama kiln

​Ichinokura village is located at the southern tip of Tajimi City, Gifu Prefecture, at the border with Seto city. It is a village with an ancient pottery tradition. The villagers are proud to say that the fires of their kilns have been burning for over 1000 years. Wile the Mino ware production area has the largest production volume in Japan, this small settlement in the mountains has traditionally been restricted by poor transportation and access to raw materials. The villagers must make do with the resources they had, so they produced easy-to-carry sake cups and tea bowls. In the Meiji Era (1868, to July 30, 1912), the village output the largest volume nationwide of sake cup (sakazuki). Today many ceramists and potters in the village are still producing for the outside world, although at a more modest scale. The village can offer a variety of pottery related experiences and exhibitions for the enthusiast.

facilities, courses and events

The main building contains a museum, a museum shop and a gallery. There is also a crafts workshop and a wealth of pottery related courses and events. Every year in October there is a massive pottery festival in the village, attracting large numbers of pottery enthusiasts. Their is a gastronomic reason to visit this village as well: the Kobegama restaurant was recognized by the Michelin Green Guide Japon with two stars.

The Kobei Kato Lusterware Museum

The village has more unexpected but very pleasant surprises for culturally curious visitors. The Lustreware museum is one of them. You may have noticed that I tried drinking tea from a Lustreware bowl at the Mino Ceramic Art museum. Kobei Kato, one of the Living National Treasures who worked in Tajimi, claimed his fame from his research and reproduction of this islamic pottery. His kiln, the Kobegama, is home to a fantastic little museum displaying his work. Why did a Japanese potter decide to make islamic pottery? Justin Dart writes about the mystery that must have fascinated Kato:

One of the most celebrated visionaries of Japanese ceramics and pottery, ever, Kobei Kato, began working and re-juvenating the lost art of ceramic making, which had been a huge part of early Persia and trade that extended all throughout Europe and the East, including Japan, but had fallen into disuse, as the cost and desire for the ‘fancy ‘styles found in the houses of wealthy Chinese gave way to what was then more affordable, mass produced and practical items.  

​Interestingly, Middle East Lustreware potters seems to have been influenced by Far East pottery tradition if we are to believe the archaeologist K. Kris Hirst:

​Lustreware grew out of an existing ceramic technology in Iraq, but its earliest form was clearly influenced by T'ang dynasty potters from China, whose art was first seen by those of Islam through trade and diplomacy along the vast trade network called the Silk Road.

experiences offered

Workshops are held in the 200-year old Kobegama kiln. You can make pottery using the same clay and glaze as is used by the kiln. Participants make dishes used in everyday life. "This may seem easy," the web site says, but it is often easier said than done. Don't worry, we have experienced staff that will help you every step of the way. You can also create your own traditional Oribe and Kiseto style tea bowls, chosing from 12 different types of glazes. We also have experiences suitable for small children where they can try painting or using mosaic tiles."

information

​Location
6 Chome-6-30-1 Ichinokurachō, Tajimi-shi, Gifu-ken 507-0814
TEL 0572-24-5911
FAX 0572-24-6766
Website
http://www.sakazuki.or.jp/information.php
E-mail
zaidan@cpm-gifu.jp
Access by public transportation and car
See official site
Opening hours
10:00 - 17:00 (last admission at 16:30)
Closed on
Tuesdays, Year-end (12/28 - 1/3).
Admission
400 yen, University and high-school students 200 yen, younger children free admission
Admission for both Sakazuki Museum and the Kobegama kiln museum: 600 yen, university students and high-school students 200 yen, younger children free admission

​Mosaic Tile Museum Tajimi

The design of the Tile Museum in Kasahara, Tajimi, is inspired by a clay quarry where the earth of a hill has been removed on one side.

The Mosaic Tile Museum in Tajimi has attracted a massive number of visitors since its opening. Their English language page presents the museum as follows:

​Following years of preparation led by organizations representing the local mosaic tile industry, which boasts the country’s largest production volume of mosaic tiles, the museum project is at long last beginning to take concrete shape. The following is a brief description of the Mosaic Tile Museum and its expected role. The architect commissioned with designing the museum building is Terunobu Fujimori, internationally acclaimed for his highly original creations informed by architectural history. The building is expected to assume a wonderfully unorthodox external appearance inspired by clay quarries where clay and silica sand are extracted for use in tile production. The museum houses over 10,000 artifacts and other materials. [...] ​In addition to exhibiting objects and materials, the museum hopes to play a unique role in connecting people from diverse backgrounds through the medium of tile, leveraging its location in the heart of one of the country’s foremost tile-producing locales.

​Except in rare instances where they are used in famous architecture, mosaic tiles are mostly discarded when dilapidated buildings are demolished. At a time when local tile production was starting to decline, and it was felt that the local tile industry needed a way to maintain pride in its manufacturing heritage, a few volunteers set about salvaging tiles from buildings earmarked for demolition, and asking tile factories closing down for product samples. The volunteers fondly recall how their requests were initially met with bewilderment, but their activities have resulted in the preservation of the extremely rare materials forming our enormous collection today. The saved materials are now in storage at the Mosaic Tile Museum Tajimi, which became their new home and gallery.

A variety of tours, lectures and events are held at the museum. The workshop space on the first floor has proven to be very popular, especially among young people.

information

​MOSAIC TILE MUSEUM, Tajimi
2082-5, Kasahara-cho, Tajimi-city, Gifu
507-0901 JAPAN
TEL +81 572.43.5101 FAX +81 572.43.5114
URL http://www.mosaictile-museum.jp/
Opening hours
09:00 - 17:00 (last admission 16:30)
Closed on
The year end Dec 29 - Jan 1

Images

Mino region map by Ash Crow