Shun-en II

The second-generation head of the Shun-en pottery school, Shun-en is one of the foremost ceramic carvers in Tokoname. He is likely the only artisan in Japan practicing fretwork techniques (in which patterns are cut out of a top layer of clay to produce striking designs incorporating the layer underneath) in the creation of teapots. Such techniques are both detailed and demanding, and create a sense of three-dimensionality and depth, which give the works an unsurpassed impact.

Shun’en succeeded his father – Shun’en I – as the head of the school in 1974, when he was only 24. Though his father was a teapot artisan, he always sent the teapots he made out to a carver for decoration. After the war, he happened to meet with Ushijima Itto, a famed carver, while he was visiting Tokoname. Their meeting led to the creation of new, three-dimensional designs never before seen in the city.

“I was never taught carving directly. I’ve studied it since I was a child by observation and imitation,” says Shun’en.

Shun-en established his own, unique style by adding color and other flourishes to Ushijima’s carvings. He then went a step farther, introducing fretwork elements that no one else had ever used. “Nobody else was making fretworked designs, so I had to think up all of the tools myself,” he says.

When Shun-en first attempted to apply fretwork elements to teapots, the pots cracked in the kiln due to differences in the degree to which the outer layer of clay (which is carved) and the inner layer clay (which shows through openings in the outer) contracted during firing. It was only after years of trial and error that he learned how to properly control the moisture content of the two layers to prevent breakage.

Though he is known for his carving techniques, however, Shun-en still makes all of the teapots he carves on his own. Many of them are made on the potter’s wheel, as is standard, but Shun-en also creates hand-molded teapots – a rarity in Japan. This is unusual – most carvers do only carving, and have their teapots made elsewhere – but Shun-en is very particular about the overall quality of his pots, making the strainers in his pots entirely by hand and paying close attention to other such details. He even prepares his own clay, something that few artists – even in Japan’s teapot capital of Tokoname – are willing to expend the effort to do.

Though his teapots are high-grade works of visual artistry, Shun-en also continually researches methods of making his pots more user-friendly. For example, by bending his teapots’ spouts slightly, Shun-en has made sure that even as the volume of the water inside the pot changes while the tea is being poured, the stream will flow smoothly, and the direction of the pour will not change. He has also made sure that the pots drain well, so that every bit of tea is poured out.