Ceramics

Visiting Artists Workshop: The Elusive Teabowl

Top to bottom: Suzuki Goro, Tsujimura Shiro, Richard Milgrim,
Jeff Shapiro

Visiting Artists Workshop: The Elusive Tea Bowl

(This Workshop is currently waitlisted.)

March 14, 2011, Monday 10 am - 4 pm

Japanese master artists, Tsujimura Shiro and Suzuki Goro along with American artists Richard Milgrim and Jeff Shapiro, will demonstrate throwing the teabowl while discussing its aesthetic and philosophical relevance to the tea ceremony. This event is one feature of a weekend of events celebrating the tea bowl (March 12 - 14th) in conjunction with the Museum of Fine Arts, Japan Society - Boston and the Lacoste Gallery, Concord, MA.

About the Weekend: Historically, the tea bowl has been a symbol for the aesthetic that pervades the tea ceremony within Eastern culture exhibiting unpretentious beauty, humility and dignity within this simple ceramic form. Since the appreciation of the world of tea has grown and the number of American ceramicists making tea bowls has increased, this comprehensive series of events address the role of the tea bowl as both a ceremonial vessel and three-dimensional art form in the wake of the artistic exchange between East and West.

The weekend begins with an exhibition of tea bowls at the Lacoste Gallery on Saturday, March 12th featuring 12 Japanese artists and 14 American artists. On Sunday, March 13th, the Museum of Fine Arts will invite international scholars and artists to discuss the history and philosophy of tea and utensils and their place within contemporary society, addressing specifically the aesthetic translation of Japanese sensibilities by American ceramicists. The weekend will conclude at the Ceramics Program, Office for the Arts at Harvard with a day of demonstrations and lectures by two Japanese master artists, Tsujimura Shiro and Suzuki Goro, joined by American ceramic artist Richard Milgrim and event organizer and American ceramic artist Jeff Shapiro. Participants will engage first hand in viewing the tea bowls being created on the wheel or carved by hand, while hearing each artist discuss the influences and progression of their own artwork.

Order of Events:
9:30 - 10:00 am: Registration
10:00 - 10:15 am: Welcome by Shawn Panepinto, Acting Director
10:15 - 11:45 am: Demonstrations - Part I
12:00 - 1:00 pm: Potluck Lunch
1:15 - 3:00 pm: Demonstrations - Part II
3:15 - 4:00 pm: Visual Presentations

About the Artists:

Tsujimura Shiro: Born in 1947, Tsujimura Shiro is one of Japan’s leading ceramicist. A self-taught artist, Shiro is well known in the West with his tea bowls, (ma cha jawan) being highly collectible. Using Oribe and Shigaraki techniques to create dynamic, wood fired pots with gritty textured surfaces and free flowing glazes, Shiro's tea bowls demonstrate the relationship between the purity of earth and its transformation with nature and fire. He fires using a series of small kilns that surround his humble compound in the mountains of Nara. Shiro's interests in art began in 1965 when he was inspired by a classical Ido tea bowl. Shiro's bowls are regularly seen in Bonhams specialist International Contemporary Ceramics auctions. He also has been exhibited at such galleries and auction houses as; Phillips de Pury, Yoshi Gallery, Galerie Besson, Oakwood Ceramics. He was honored with a solo chadogu exhibition at the Kyoto Chado Shiryokan in 1999, the second contemporary potter to have such an exhibition.

Suzuki Goro: Japanese master ceramist Goro Suzuki works in the centuries-old Oribe style. Originally from the 17th century, Oribe ware features simple design motifs based on fanciful combinations of squares, rectangles and circles. Suzuki san has abstracted the traditional Oribe designs to create his own style. His work demonstrates a masterful manipulation of the material and an aesthetic of rustic simplicity. Long admired by Japanese collectors, his work is a favorite of artists and connoisseurs in the United States. Suzuki’s career spans over forty years from his early days as a production potter, through his tremendous success as a revered master ceramist. Goro Suzuki’s work has been exhibited extensively and included in museum collections in Japan as well as the United States. His work is represented in the Japanese Pavilion of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Hetsens Museum in Dusseldorf, Germany, and the Marer Collection at Scripps College in Claremont, California.

Richard Milgrim: Richard Milgrim has been recognized as an independent ceramic artist creating “chatou” (tea ceramics) in Japan for over 25 years and is the first Western potter whose tea ceramics have been fully endorsed by Dr. Sen Genshitsu, the 15th Grand Master of the Urasenke Tradition of Tea. A native of New York, Milgrim first visited Japan for a year in 1977 as a student researching ceramics. After graduating from Antioch College in '79, Milgrim had a fateful meeting with Dr. Sen at Japan House Gallery in New York City. That fall, returning to Kyoto on a Watson Fellowship, he studied Japanese tea ceremony (Chanoyu) at the Urasenke Headquarters while apprenticing to master potter Iwabuchi Shigeya. He studied with three other masters in the Hagi, Bizen and Mino traditions before building his own kiln near Kyoto (1984-85), being honored with the name Richado-Gama from Dr. Sen. Milgrim has held over 50 solo exhibitions throughout Japan and the U.S. and has been selected for the Bi-Annual Japan National Ceramic Exhibition and the Tanko Biennale for Tea Arts ten times. Since 2000 he has divided his time between Kyoto and Concord, Massachusetts where he established his American studio, named Konko-Gama by Dr. Sen in 2004. Milgrim continues to expand his interpretations of classical styles, creating unique tea ceramics in both countries using traditional as well as contemporary techniques and materials. Richard will be holding his first major exhibition at the Pucker Gallery in Boston January 15 - February 14th, 2011.

Jeff Shapiro: Born 1949 in New York City, Jeff Shapiro would eventually find a home in Japan before moving back to New York in 1981. What started as a work-study in Japan from 1973 – 1980 turned into a life long interests with Japan’s culture and art, causing Shapiro to look at art from a unique standpoint. Shapiro is now interested in making his art more ‘fluid’ and chooses to, “…look with the intent of perceiving the artistic elements of what I am viewing rather than the intellectual dissection of information.” Shapiro is also a storyteller/writer and presently lives in upstate New York with his wife and two children. In his book, "Falling From the Tree," he discusses his time in Japan and relationship with patron Kabumoto Nobuo.