A winding road on a mountain side that slowly becomes too narrow for a car to pass, Takahiro Manomeis in one sense isolated. In another, he is integral to the current generation of Kasama potters. The impetus to connect Kasama’s sometimes disparate ceramicist community came from the earthquake of 2011, when Manome, from his mountain side, drove an initiative to repair one another’s kilns. Slow and deliberate in his speech, Manome’s context in his distant atelier full of art books and pottery shelves, has perhaps left him a little unaccustomed to interaction. But his work, like his other initiatives to connect, shows a spirit of exploration, and an essential friendliness to its user. It balances an elemental sense of its material, with soft glazes and sensitive forms. A kind presence in the Kasama pottery scene, the work of Takahiro Manome can take a similar role in the home.
