Bizen Ware Pottery Experience with a Ceramic Artist from the Renowned Kaneshige Family

Born of Earth and Fire – the Subtle Beauty of Bizen Ware

The history of Bizen ware stretches back well over a thousand years, with roots in the basic production of simple everyday items such as bowls, cups, and plates. By the end of the 16th century, it had evolved into a valuable local industry and an art form in its own right. Warlord Toyotomi Hideyoshi and tea master Sen no Rikyu held the fine tea ceremony utensils shaped by Bizen artisans in particularly high esteem. Most Bizen ware was produced in the village of Imbe due to its abundance of pine trees and excellent clay.

Honored as one of Japan’s Six Ancient Kilns, Bizen ware is made from local iron-rich clay prized for its durability, pebbled texture, and rich reddish-brown coloring when fired at high temperatures in wood-fueled kilns. No artificial glazes are applied to the pottery, but hot ash from the Japanese pine used as firewood adheres to form a natural glaze. Patterns are remarkable, each piece organic and unique, as artisans experiment with unpredictable variables of temperature, soil, and additional items such as straw ropes—always with the hope that something wonderful will emerge from the flames.

Continuing an Ancient Family and Community Legacy

Jumpei Kaneshige was born into a line of Bizen artisans extending back through the centuries. His grandfather Toyo Kaneshige was acclaimed for his part in the modern revival of Bizen ware, advocating for its earthy, unadorned beauty over gaudier ceramics. Today, Jumpei Kaneshige follows in the footsteps of his predecessors while forging his own path, having even spent time in the United States studying sculpture to gain a broader artistic perspective.

That experience helped shape how Kaneshige viewed Bizen ware. While other schools of pottery emphasized designing outcomes before placing anything into a kiln, the approach in Bizen was more serendipitous, recognizing that the fire and the clay were not servants to the human mind but rather partners. His work reflects a deep appreciation of the asymmetrical, the spontaneous, and the understated, most often expressed in items that can be used and enjoyed in daily life.

Explore the Kiln and Studio of a Bizen Ware Master

To provide you with an insider’s view of the world of Bizen ware, Kaneshige will guide you around his studio to show you the equipment involved as well as pottery at various stages of the production process. A particular highlight of the tour is a visit to his family’s noborigama, a brick-and-clay climbing kiln consisting of multiple connected chambers ascending upward like a set of stairs. Introduced in the 17th century, noborigama provided better heat regulation along with increased production volume. Using Japanese pine as fuel, Kaneshige stokes his own kiln over the course of 10 days, gradually increasing the temperature until it reaches over 1,200 °C (over 2,200 °F).

As impressive as this kiln is, Kaneshige knows that it would be nothing but an expensive furnace without just the right clay to be fired in its chambers. The special iron-rich clay used for Bizen ware is excavated from under local rice fields, then laid aside to age for years, or even decades, before it is ready to be used. When Kaneshige shows you this clay, take a moment to reflect on the level of dedication that this implies. In Bizen, artisans prepare clay that they may never use, but that can be bestowed upon future generations to continue the tradition. 

While not directly related to Bizen ware, Kaneshige’s property is also home to an ancient burial mound known as a kofun. Across much of Japan, such tombs were frequently constructed for noble persons between 250-538 AD, with some containing extravagant grave goods. While nothing is known about the former denizen of this particular kofun, you can enter inside with your host for a haunting experience of the deep history of this region.

Shape Your Own Piece of Bizen Ware at the Potter’s Wheel

Feeling inspired after your tour, you will follow Kaneshige back to the studio to try your own hand at Bizen ware. While traditional Japanese arts may conjure up images of rigidity and strict discipline, you will find that Kaneshige encourages originality and experimentation in his pupils. Take your seat at the potter’s wheel and feel the damp clay move and change beneath your fingers, marveling at the improbability that this slippery substance could ever harden into unique and useful ceramic art.

Because Kaneshige prefers Bizen ware that can be used and appreciated in daily life, he encourages his Wabunka guests to create mugs, bowls, or cups. Bizen ware is especially renowned among drinkers of beer and sake, with its rough, porous clay said to mellow the taste of alcohol and create the perfect foamy head on beer. For tea and coffee drinkers, the clay is said to mitigate bitterness while enhancing rich flavors and aromas.

*Your finished piece of Bizen ware will be delivered to you at a later date by international courier. Please note that this may take several months due to the lengthy drying and firing process.

Explore the Village of Imbe to Understand the Importance of Bizen Ware (Additional Option)

Bizen ware was long a collective endeavor in the village of Imbe, particularly after it became viable economically when its popularity expanded in the 16th century. To illustrate the importance of this pottery tradition to the history of Imbe, Kaneshige offers tours to the hillside rings of the Tempo Kiln, a huge noborigama climbing kiln built in the 1830s. Constructing and operating such a vast kiln would have required substantial cooperation from the whole community, implying that the benefits of Bizen ware were well worth the labor.

The next stop on Kaneshige’s tour is Imbe Jinja, a small shrine in the hills above the village. From there, he will lead you to a view across the rooftops of Imbe, its kiln chimneys a tall reminder of the village’s living legacy of Bizen ware. Less obvious is a bare hillside that appears reddish-brown from a distance. That is the last destination of the tour. Up close, you will soon realize that what is crunching beneath your feet is not dirt or rocks, but millions of shards of discarded pottery—a reminder that failure has always been a necessary step on the route to artistic success.

*Tours are not available from July 15-September 15.

Participate in an Ancient Tradition for a Fresh Perspective on Ceramic Art

If you have ever wandered through a museum past rows of ancient pottery, you may have wondered why you are spending time staring at someone else’s old dishes. Ceramics have been so commonplace in our lives for so long that they can be easy to overlook. Touring Kaneshige’s kiln and studio is a reminder of their wondrous transformation from simple earth to beautiful utilitarian art via trial by raging flame.

Every piece of Bizen ware that enters the fiery belly of a kiln comes out altered in unforeseen ways—a beautiful uncertainty that fuels the future of this ancient Japanese art form. With this special Wabunka experience in Bizen, you too will participate in this age-old tradition, shaping clay with your own hands before leaving it to the flames to wait and see what emerges.