Artisan Maeda Asami | Japanese Porcelain Patterned in Relief, Not Paint
White porcelain shaped like petals and leaves. At the centre, a scrolling flower pattern, and a piece that carries the feel of the hand that made it. Using icchin and painted decoration, Maeda Asami makes work whose appeal lies in its distinctive forms and in the small handmade touches worked into them.
She is based in Kyoto. The brand is called jiucasca. We are told the name carries a wish: that her pots be like the faint, merciful rain that comes after a long dry season.
White porcelain, a blue-tinged ash celadon, and a bronze glaze with the sheen of metal. That you can enjoy the differences in colour as well as in form and technique is another mark of Maeda Asami's work.
Her work is gathered in the Maeda Asami collection. From mamezara to seven-sun plates, mugs and flower vessels, you can choose across a range of colours, forms and techniques.
Two techniques that define the work
There are two ways the pattern on Maeda Asami's work gets made. One is icchin: liquid clay slip loaded into a bulb and squeezed out in a line as the hand travels. The motion is close to piping icing onto a cake, except the line shrinks as it dries and shrinks again in the kiln. Holding a line at one thickness means holding the pressure and the speed of the hand steady the whole way. It is an extremely delicate technique.
The other is relief carving, where a mould presses the pattern into the body so it stands up from the surface. The scrolling flowers in the centre of her lobed plates are made this way.
What both share is that the pattern is made of height, not colour. So when the glaze goes on and the piece is fired, glaze pools thick in the valleys and thins over the ridges. A single glaze produces its own light and shade. That is why the motif on the side of a mug appears and disappears as you tilt it to the light.
Three glazes, and the painted decoration laid over them
The same shape becomes a different pot depending on what goes over it.
- Bronze glaze A dull gold-brown shot through with metallic crystals. It carries itself like a piece of antique metalwork found at a flea market
- Ash celadon A pale, translucent blue-green. The colour sinks into the deeper cuts and gives a fresh gradation
- Blue-white porcelain White with the faintest blue in it, sitting between white porcelain and celadon
To these she adds small flowers in sometsuke, painted in cobalt on white porcelain — that line of work shows itself in paint rather than relief. Knowing Japanese pottery glazes makes the differences between pieces on the same shelf much easier to see.
The body is porcelain throughout. It does not absorb water, so medome is unnecessary. You can start using it the day it arrives, however the mood takes you.
What Kyoto allows
In places like Shigaraki and Bizen, the clay is what set the character of the work. Kyo ware and Kiyomizu ware are the opposite case. Kyoto has no clay especially suited to pottery; what it has is a pull that drew makers to it, and a culture that grew from them.
Free of the clay, they were free of the style that goes with it. Porcelain and stoneware, painting and carving all sit side by side within the same city. And out of that comes exactly this: white porcelain shaped like petals and leaves, a scrolling flower at the centre, and the handmade feel of Maeda Asami's work.
Work that brings any table to life
The strength of her work is that the sizes line up. The same lobed rim and the same scrolling flower come as a mamezara, a small plate, a medium plate and a seven-sun plate. Collect one form in several sizes, or pick a size to suit the moment — how you use them is entirely open.
- Mamezara and mame-mamezara Salt, condiments, a single chocolate. Also a tray for rings and earrings
- Small plates As a side plate, or as a saucer under a mug
- Medium plates Slightly deep, so they take a wet side dish, a salad, or bread
- Seven-sun plates A raised rim that holds the food in. Good for sweets, too
Related reading
Her techniques
- Icchin: Slip Trailing, the Raised Dot Technique
- Sometsuke: Blue and White Porcelain, Explained
- Celadon (Seiji): The Blue-Green Glaze of Iron and Fire
- Japanese Pottery Glazes: The Main Types Explained
Understanding porcelain
- Japanese Porcelain: Made from Stone, Not Clay
- Stoneware vs Porcelain: How to Tell Them Apart
- Kyo Ware and Kiyomizu Ware: Kyoto's Refined Ceramics
Other makers
- Artisan Higuchi Maki | From Cranes to a Coelacanth, Hand-Painted Japanese Pottery
- Artisan Masanori Yamamoto | Carving Only Shinogi, in Shigaraki
See Maeda Asami's work
White porcelain, ash celadon, bronze glaze. The same motif, at every size. Sent one piece at a time from her Kyoto studio.
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New to Japanese pottery? Start here — its history, how pottery differs from porcelain, the clays and glazes behind each style, and how to care for a piece. → Japanese Pottery: The Complete Guide