Ceramist Profile:  Yuichi Ikai

Expressing Nature Through Pottery

Haiyu Ash Glazed Glasses

by Yuichi Ikai

Kyoto potter Yuichi Ikai, like many ceramic artists, finds inspiration for his art in the natural world.  Yet, rather than embellishing his works with images of flora, fauna, or mountainscapes, this artist chooses to emphasize the curious subtleties he finds in the oldest and most natural of all glazes - wood ash.

Mr. Ikai sees himself as a medium through which nature passes.  His ash glazes are the conduit which carries his message to clay.  As a result, his unadorned works are imbued with a soft, organic quality.

"The works I make are created artificially. That is, they pass from nature through a filter which is me. Pottery, like cooking or flower arrangement, is created from nature in the same way."

Background

At the young age of 18, Yuichi Ikai faced the choice of taking over the ceramics store his father had established along Kyoto's Gojo-zaka Street or becoming a maker of pottery himself.  He chose the latter and entered the Kyoto School for Ceramic Arts Training where, for the first time in his life, he touched a piece of clay.  He soon realized the skill of his own hands and started developing on his own distinctive style.
 

Having grown up in the Gojo-zaka district, not to mention being son to a yakimono-ya (ceramics dealer), Mr. Ikai was already well familiar with Kyoto's thriving ceramics scene.  There were makers of Kiyomizu porcelain, tenmoku, celadon, Raku and others to lend him their counsel.

It was the unique character of ash glazes, however, that captivated the young potter from early on:

"Almost all things in nature have iron content. The green that you see in my pottery is the iron content in wood ash.  Different kinds of wood have different quantities of iron, so each produces a different color.  Even trees of the same species but taken from different areas will produce different results.  I found this most interesting, so naturally I gravitated towards working with ash."

Haiyu Green Ash Glazed Plates

by Yuichi Ikai

So, in 1984, under the guidance of Uichi Shimizu (Living National Treasure), Mr. Ikai established his own kiln, Kihei-gama, on a remote plot of land in the mountains to the north - far from the urban sprawl of modern day Kyoto. Populated only by abundant red pine and cedar trees, the location would become both a source of inspiration for the artist - a place where he could connect with nature - and convenient source for the principal ingredient in his glazes.
 

Kihei-gama
 

In the same year, Mr. Ikai started his apprenticeship under Yasutaka Shimizu, further honing his skills in forming and glazing. The circumstances couldn't have been more favorable for the young potter. His sensei was already an accomplished ceramic artist (as well as his father before him) whose exemplary work in ash glazes had won him accolades from across Japan and abroad.

Soon afterwards, Yuichi Ikai would begin winning spots in regional ceramic competitions and start making a name for himself among Kyoto's tightly knit ceramic making circles.
 

Haiyu Ash Glazed Dishes
by Yuichi Ikai

Haiyu Ash Glazed Dish
(reverse side)

Form and Process

For millennia, potters have used wood ash as a flux (an ingredient that promotes ceramic fusion) in their glazes, and historians credit the Chinese for first developing the technique some time during the Zhou dynasty (1066 - 221 BC).

Mr. Ikai works in a number of ash glazes (called haiyu in Japanese), all of which he prepares himself at Kihei-gama.  Although feldspar, lime, and other ingredients are mixed in, the principal component in his glazes is ash, including those made from red pine, cedar, rice husk and straw.

Using an electric or gas kiln, Mr. Ikai fires his works for twenty hours and then allows them to cool for another thirty.  During this critical cooling down period, the character of ash glazes develops.  The longer the better, so Kyoto's hot (and humid) summer months are better suited for firing.

The results are as varied as the ash that is used.  Red pine, for example, lends these haiyu dishes at left a soft green tone; the amber colored spots and streaks are the iron content in the glaze.  Perhaps their most distinguishing feature is the glassy, emerald colored pool in the center where the melted wood ash, guided by gravity, crystallized while cooling in the kiln.