Sometimes, when I look at a painting or hold an object in my hands, I fall into a dreamlike state. I dream of long-ago events, faraway...

In reply to a telegram the Iemoto dips his brush in ink and writes this beautiful, well-spaced, but humble letter about manners, money,...

In Japan, when prized ceramics, especially those associated with chanoyu (the tea ceremony), were broken or damaged, they would be mended...

This letter is about fish and poetry, about gratitude and sorrow. Ishikawa Jozan was a prominent Samurai recluse, garden designer, and...

Karsumaru Mitsuhiro was a distinguished poet and a major figure in the inner circles of Emperor Go-Mizunoo. Karasumaru Mitsuhiro,...

Kodojin - the Old Taoist - was both a poet and a painter. And he is remembered as being one of the last in a long line of literati...

An ambiguous tea bowl. It is monumental and in the same time it is shy, reclusive, and fragile. Rengetsu delicately finger-pinched the...

Takuan Soho was the prototypical early Edo monk scholar with a sharp, witty, and untamed spirit. Dressed in a monk’s robe he pursued...

No doubt that Shibata Zeshin was the most prominent lacquer artist of the nineteenth century. And Ikeda Taishin (1825–1903) was his most...

If one day you would want to get away from your fancy, feverish, frantic urban life, where would you go? Where would you hope to find a...

Rengetsu’s life slowed down at around the age of 75. The long years of travelling, moving, and drifting came to an end in the small...

Allem Sammeln liegt eine kaum zähmbare Leidenschaft zugrunde. Warum aber gerade Keramik? Und warum ausgerechnet deformierte Keramiken aus...

When tea is poured into a teacup flowers bloom inside the cup. Move the teacup or pick it up and all of the flower petals scatter and...

Some four or five centuries ago in Japan, a lavish technique emerged for repairing broken ceramics. Artisans began using lacquer and gold pi

Yuki Tatsumi was working as a waiter in a restaurant when one day, as he was cleaning up a table, he noticed that a customer had...

Von Marion Poschmann Töpfern – damit verbindet man hierzulande Volkshochschulkurse für gelangweilte Hausfrauen, Reha-Angebote,...

The overwhelming majority of tea practitioners in contemporary Japan are women, but there has been little discussion on their historical...

"Matsuo Basho was one of the most famous Zen poets of Japan, who alerts us to the neglected beauty and interest of everyday life, and...

With mazes of expressways pushing scores of traffic through action filled, neon lit cities, there is perhaps no better platform than...

Raku Kichizaemon, the fifteenth grand master of the Raku line of potters, creates avant-garde works of ceramic art rooted in 450 years of...