Private Pottery Experience with Ceramic Artist Makimasa Imai: Create Your Own Matcha Bowl or Sculpture in Kyoto

Kyoto Ceramics with a Sculptor’s Soft Touch

Over the Higashiyama hills from the Kamogawa riverfront and Kawaramachi areas of central Kyoto, sits the private atelier of potter and ceramic artist Makimasa Imai. A Kyoto native, Makimasa Imai is part of a family of Kyoto ceramics artists beginning with his father Masayuki, recipient of Japan’s Order of Culture in 2018 for his innovative inlay techniques, and including his son Sadamasa.

Imai began his artistic career not as a potter but a sculptor in the Sculpture Department of Tokyo University of the Arts, where he not only completed his undergraduate and graduate programs but also went on to teach part time. In 1991, he finally made his homecoming in Kyoto, striking out on his own in a career not as an academic but as a full-fledged artist. Imai’s background as a sculptor remains readily apparent in his work: animals, birds, fish, and other forms from the living world – real and fanciful alike – emerge from his clay with a striking sense of presence, mass, movement, and color.

Imai employs spatula-carving techniques and high-temperature firing, and approaches his work as much with an artist’s embrace of the spontaneity, inspiration, and sensitive deference to the behavior of his materials as with a scientist’s measured and exacting precision in his tools and measurements.

“The most important thing my father passed on to me was not his technique but his philosophy and spirit. Technique isn’t really that important to teach – you inevitably pick it up on your own just by doing as long as you continue. Presence of mind is different, though, and it isn’t confined to the time we spend working. For example, being calm and open and adaptable is vital. You can’t be short-tempered with people and then patient and subtle and delicate with clay. It’s all connected.”

Crafting a Matcha Bowl or Other Work of Ceramic Art Under Imai’s Direct Guidance

Begin by observing the artist at work, with explanations of ceramics theory accompanied by practical demonstrations that serve as a model for how a master approaches the clay to equip you for getting hands-on with it yourself in the production experience.

A matcha bowl is recommended as a simple and practical form that anyone can create during the experience. However, guests who wish to challenge themselves to something different can also try their hand at creating an animal form like a frog or rabbit or bird – or even a world-famous game and anime character.

Watching him work makes Imai’s background in sculpture readily apparent, as he moves seamlessly between throwing the clay on the potter’s wheel and carving fine details into it with a variety of carving tools. Under his direct guidance, surrounded by gems of ceramic art depicting rabbits and birds and other meticulously studied forms from nature casually stored right there in the atelier all around you, put your hands to the clay for yourself and shape a matcha bowl or other vessel of your choosing. Avail yourself of his expert advice as you add details or make deliberate choices to add character to your piece.

As Imai describes of learning from his own father, the real techniques of pottery and sculpture are learned by doing, but a master artist can indeed shed light on the spirit and mindset best suited to the craft. Imai’s own technical mastery comes from years of experience with his tools – some of them heritage pieces that have visibly shrunk from wear since his father first purchased or created them – and with different admixtures of clay sourced from all over Japan and beyond, working in different seasons and atmospheric conditions.

“Precision in your approach is certainly important,” says Imai, “but sometimes you just don’t know exactly how a certain mixture of clay on a certain day is going to behave until you start to work it. And then you go from there.”

Three Generations of Ceramic Art at Imai Studio

After shaping the clay in the workspace, head to the reception room to enjoy tea and sweets while your piece dries. Here, you will be introduced to the history of the Imai family and can view works created by Makimasa, the current head of the studio, and his father, Masayuki.

Splitting their work between Hiroshima and Kyoto, the family’s base in the old capital lies at the hilly edge of Yamashina Ward, an area deeply associated with contemporary Kyoto ceramics. In 1962, it became the seat of the Kiyomizu-yaki Pottery Complex, as the center of Kiyomizu-yaki ceramic production shifted away from the nearby but increasingly residential neighborhoods around Kiyomizu Temple. Today, the neighborhood remains home to a thriving community of artists and businesses firmly rooted in the world of Kyoto pottery.

The Imai approach to ceramics is born from a deep awareness of and respect for these shifts and transformations over time – right down to the life of the clay itself and what it represents for the future. “Clay is formed over aeons by geological processes like weathering, erosion, and sedimentation – and ceramics in turn come into being when this clay is subjected to the intense heat of the kiln. Humans represent but a fleeting blip in the history of the earth, but ceramics are among our most durable creations and serve as a way to preserve traces of our existence long after we are gone.”

Beyond the Kiln – the Life of Clay

Savoring freshly brewed tea from a bowl made by Imai himself helps to make real the relationship between unfinished clay shapes and the final polished forms they will eventually take and the day-to-day functions they go on to perform, creating a clearer connection between the piece you have just crafted and the life it will subsequently live with you.

“There is just something fundamentally different and special about eating or drinking from a piece of tableware that you made yourself,” says Imai. “It sparks the memory and connects you with the past – with yourself as you were when you created it, and also with the place where it took shape and the feeling of actually being there.”

Over tea, Imai also explains what will happen when your newly-shaped work meets the intense heat and fire of the kiln – a central part of any potter’s work. Imai is known for his distinct high-temperature firing in a specialized traditional wood-fired kiln known as anagama, and a direct chat with him is a great chance to learn all about what makes it special, how it transforms the clay, and also the color and finish you wish for him to apply to your bowl. After your piece has dried, return to the work floor for the finishing touches.

Kyoto in the Clay

International trips tend to be remembered through souvenirs bought, photos and videos taken, foods eaten, or conversations had. But there is a special tactile relationship with the memory of a place that comes from an object created there with your own hands – and all the more so when that object has been made from the very earth itself.

A visit to Imai’s studio is sure to linger in the memory for years for the brush it represents with artistic mastery, the inside look it offers into the world of the artist, and the deep connections it carries with local history and craft tradition. But perhaps most of all it is encountering your creation in your day-to-day life – whether as a functional utensil that you enjoy your favorite beverage from, or as a decorative piece to greet each day as you pass it in your home as Imai is fond of doing with his animal forms – that is apt to become one of your most cherished and vivid connections to your memories of your time in Kyoto.

Long after the clay leaves your hands, long even after the firing and other finishing touches Imai puts on it to bring it to life, the resulting creation carries the imprint of your hands, the memories of the potter’s studio, the artistic philosophy and ceramic techniques you learned there, and all the local craft history and tradition behind them. Capture Kyoto and everything you feel here – along with your encounter with three generations of craft mastery – in the transformation of earth and fire into an enduring keepsake that connects you not only to your own memories, but perhaps to your future, and even to your own family’s future generations as well.