Artisan Masanori Yamamoto | Carving Only Shinogi, in Shigaraki
We have never counted how many lines are carved into a single plate. What is obvious the moment you hold one to the light is that every one of them was cut by hand. The grooves differ slightly in depth, and the spacing wavers a little from line to line.
The work of Masanori Yamamoto, who makes pots in Shigaraki in Shiga Prefecture, is almost entirely shinogi. In a kiln inherited from his grandfather, plates, bowls, mugs and chopstick rests are all cut by the same hand with the same blade.
This article covers what shinogi is, and why Masanori Yamamoto is the rare maker who lets you furnish a whole table from one pair of hands.
The pieces currently in stock are gathered on Yamamo Masano. Each one carries a different face, so compare them in the photographs.
Shinogi — a swordsmith's word, borrowed by potters
Shinogi was originally a term for the Japanese sword: the raised ridge running between the spine and the edge of the blade. The idiom shinogi wo kezuru, to grind ridge against ridge, still means a contest fought that closely.
In ceramics, shinogi is the technique of putting that ridge onto the surface of a pot. Clay is pared away with a rib or a kanna, leaving a run of continuous cuts. The grooves sit low, the untouched clay stands high, and that difference changes how the light falls, line by line.
For the technique itself see shinogi, and for how it sits alongside other surface work see our article on decorating techniques.
Unlike painting, shinogi adds nothing. You cut, you take away, and a pattern is what remains. Nothing new enters the colour scheme, so the pot never argues with the food on it. The flip side is that there is no way to hide a mistake. Cut too deep and you go through; cut unevenly and the line goes muddy.
In a kiln inherited from his grandfather
Masanori Yamamoto works in Shigaraki, a valley town in Shiga Prefecture and one of Japan's Six Ancient Kilns. Pots have been fired here since the eighth century, and the region is known for coarse clay flecked with natural feldspar that flares scarlet or runs to glassy green in a wood kiln — pottery as raw clay itself.
His work, though, points somewhere other than that famous roughness. The expression comes from repetition of the hand, not from the force of the clay. The kiln is the traditional one he inherited from his grandfather, so he stands on the region's technique while running a line of his own straight through it.
- Shigaraki Ware: Why Its Clay Sparkles After 1,200 Years
- Japan's Six Ancient Kilns: All 6 Regions Compared
- Shigaraki Pottery | Handmade Japanese Ceramics
Choose pots by the name of a region and you miss makers like this. It is Shigaraki, and it is nothing like the picture of Shigaraki. That is not the region thinning out; it is the region having range.
Hana-shinogi — radiating from the centre
There are broadly two currents in his shinogi.
The first is vertical shinogi. Short cuts run from rim to foot, or follow the rim around, laid one after another. The result is regular and fine, like overlapping feathers.
The second is hana-shinogi, flower shinogi. Long narrow cuts start at the centre of the pot and reach outward. The lines gather at that point and a single bloom seems to open there. Put one plate on the table and the eye goes straight to the middle.
Glaze runs thin over the cut grooves and pools thick on the clay left standing. Out of the kiln, the grooves surface as dark brown lines and the ground between them shines white. The pattern was not drawn; it is what cutting left behind — the reason shinogi is called decoration by subtraction.
White and black, two glazes
The same form reads very differently depending on the glaze. He works mainly in two.
| Glaze | How it reads | What it suits |
|---|---|---|
| White | Milky glaze sits on the raised clay while iron collects in the cuts and turns them dark brown. The rim tightens to an iron colour | Never fights the colour of the food. Works with Japanese and Western cooking alike, breakfast through dinner |
| Black | Matte dark brown overall, the pattern carried purely by the height between groove and ridge — shinogi in shadow | White food shows: tofu, white fish. Mixed with the white pieces it pulls the table together |
Someone who already owns several white pieces adds a single black one in the same form. That is the easiest way to grow a set of his work. The shapes match, so nothing jars, and only the colour shifts the mood of the table.
One pair of hands, a whole table
This is the rarest thing about his work.
Studio pottery usually skews towards certain forms. One potter makes plates, another makes tea bowls. Try to furnish a table from a single maker and you hit a wall: this one does not make mugs.
Masanori Yamamoto keeps one motif, shinogi, across plates, bowls, mugs, teaware, sake cups, flower vases and chopstick rests.
- Plates From 12cm side plates to 24cm chargers. Rim shinogi and hana-shinogi
- Bowls Rice bowls, 21cm shallow bowls, lipped bowls
- Mugs Vertical shinogi over the whole outside
- Sake Flat cups
- Flowers A teardrop single-stem vase
- Chopstick rests White and black, the same shinogi
Which is to say one table can be completed from chopstick rest to charger by the same hand, the same blade, the same glaze. Buy at intervals and the pieces still line up years later. He is one of the few makers whose work you can raise as a series rather than collect one piece at a time.
What is in stock changes with the season. Check Yamamo Masano for what is on the shelf now, then fill in the forms you are missing.
What changes with use
Shinogi pieces do something flat pieces cannot. Colour settles into the grooves.
Fine crazing in the glaze, and the floor of each cut: tea and soy sauce seep slowly into both. On the day you buy it the contrast of white and dark is crisp; with use the lines look a little wider and a little deeper. It is one of the few techniques where the pattern can be said to grow.
Turn a piece over and look at the foot ring as well. The marks of the trimming are left exactly as they fell, and it is the clearest record of how fast the maker's hands move.
How pots change with use is covered in our article on pottery that grows, and everyday handling in our article on caring for Japanese ceramics.
Choosing the first piece
If you are buying his work for the first time, there are three ways in.
- 1. A 15cm rim plate The size that earns its keep. Side plate, bread plate, cake plate. Use one and find out whether you like shinogi under the fingers
- 2. Straight to a 24cm charger One piece carries the table. Served as a single plate, the shinogi works as the space around the food. For hana-shinogi this is the size that shows best
- 3. Two chopstick rests The smallest and the safest way in. Buy one white and one black and you meet both faces of this maker at once
Whichever you choose, anything you add later will match. Do not worry about the order; start with the one that caught your eye.
Related reading
The techniques
- Shinogi: The Carved Ridges on Japanese Pottery
- Five Decorating Techniques on Japanese Pottery
- Rokuro: How a Pot Is Thrown on the Wheel
- How Japanese Pottery Is Shaped: Five Forming Methods
Shigaraki and the Six Ancient Kilns
- Shigaraki Ware: Why Its Clay Sparkles After 1,200 Years
- Japan's Six Ancient Kilns: All 6 Regions Compared
- Shigaraki Pottery | Handmade Japanese Ceramics
Living with the pieces
- Pottery That 'Grows': How Ceramics Change With Use
- Keshiki: How to Read the 'Landscape' on a Pot
- How to Care for Japanese Ceramics: A Practical Guide
- Kodai (Foot Ring): The Part Collectors Check First
By form
- Japanese Plates | Handmade & One of a Kind
- Rice Bowls, Soup Bowls, and Matcha Bowls | Handcrafted Ceramics from Producers Across Japan
- Japanese Mugs | Handmade & One of a Kind
See Masanori Yamamoto's work
Shinogi cut by hand, one line at a time, in a Shigaraki kiln. Because everything from plates to chopstick rests shares the motif, adding pieces slowly never leaves the table looking mismatched. Even in the same form, no two carvings are alike. Japanese pottery for sale, direct from the maker.
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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