Keep it long, treasure it long.

Once-in-a-lifetime chance

Speaking of pottery markets, you can find great deals and bargains by going to the production areas.

The place I visited was Hasami Town, Nagasaki Prefecture. This is also a major production area for Kyushu's pottery. It is a major production area where pottery production began around 1580, as pottery stone, the basis for porcelain, was produced from the basin topography.
Hasami ware has a 16% share of the total shipments of everyday tableware nationwide, and the region is home to many potteries that produced Arita ware until around 2000.
Nishikai Toki Co., Ltd., which has been supporting manufacturing by standing between each workshop and people's lives in a production area with a division of labor system, has started a new production area, with the atmosphere of Hasami ware that is often seen in recent fashionable tableware. The background lies in the technology that has been used to produce tableware and arts and crafts over a history of over 400 years. The current characteristics of Hasami ware are mainly the beauty of white porcelain and the delicate dyeing of Gosu (indigo) painting, but until now Arita ware has responded to various requests by improving technology and manufacturing products. Because of the history of manufacturing, the production areas have a wide variety of techniques.

This time we will be introducing a piece of excavated pottery that gives you a sense of this.
When you visit Saikai Pottery, which started the history of Hasami ware, you will find things that you can no longer see.
Nowadays, there are many things that are not worth the time, technology, and material cost to make these things, but these products reflect the goodness of the time. This is a treasure-like product that I believe will be difficult to manufacture with the same quality in the future.



Butterfly picture series

The Nishikicho-e series was created as a Chinese tableware over 30 to 40 years ago. Chocho means long life because its pronunciation is the same as ``cho''. It is considered a symbol of beauty due to the shape and color of its gorgeous wings and the beauty of its gorgeous growth and flapping appearance, and the motifs that have been popular in crafts and paintings since ancient times have been used as patterns on table accessories.
It has a shape that looks like a small teapot and has a somewhat European feel, and an adorable small flower pattern. This is a cute pot that you can also use as a dressing container. If you have some space in your kitchen, you can decorate your room with shortened green cut flowers, or if you have space in your kitchen, the Nishiki Butterfly Picture Series is cute. The letters on the handle also have a nice atmosphere. The small plates have a Western feel and can be used not only as soy sauce and condiment plates, but also as sweets plates to accompany coffee or tea.

Jewelry box

Ceramic jewelry box. At the dough stage, a layer of slurry (a mud-like liquid made by mixing clay and water) is applied over and over again to create unevenness, which is then bisque-fired and main-fired.Then, it is colored using gold paint, and then the top layer is painted. It seems that it was completed after the painting was fired.

The jewelry box has a hand-painted flower picture with an Eastern European feel, and from the shading of each color stroke, you can feel that each small piece of pottery has been carefully crafted.
The hexagonal Royal Nouveau, which has a Western feel, is said to be made by pasting and firing a detailed pattern transfer. The gold-plated jewelry box has no pattern, and has irregularities that look like polka dots, making it a unique item.
All of them have an exotic vintage feel, and you can feel the history of how pottery from all over the world has been influenced and reflected in each one.

Hakusan pottery vintage

The other is a wall-hanging vase made of Hakusan pottery. This wall-mounted vase is easy to use for pillars in entrances, washrooms, and stairs, and has an exotic elephant pattern. This is a rarely seen collaboration product between Hakusan Toki, which is well known as a long-life brand, and a brand that is a purveyor to the Kingdom of Thailand.The brand's symbol, the elephant, is expressed in the shades of gosu. The reason why the animal prints don't look childish is probably because of the sense of design and color patterns that only a luxury brand can have, but this is also a product that goes beyond the retro Japanese image.

Beware of bargains

All of them are pottery items that reflect the background of the times and should be cherished. It is no longer in production and is an old product. There is no major deterioration in the product itself, but there may be some scratches on the handle. There are no tears in the packaging, but please note that it is old.