7-sun White Patchwork Patterned Plate by Aya Kondo

£50.00

These plates are by Kasama based ceramicist Aya Kondo. In the Japanese ceramic measurement scale, they are 7 sun. As one sun is around 3.03cm, this makes them roughly 21cm in diameter.

Kondo is most known for her designs using slip trailing, with careful and ornate application of pattern. But these pieces show another side of her ceramic repertoire, with patchwork sections of the glaze shades that she makes in her wooded studio, in a rural section of Kasama. As each piece is handmade, each is different, with the colours delimited, but sometimes running into each other. These include a burnt brown, ‘ame’ (caramel) glaze, and whites and creams, made from ash.

Aya Kondo is a ceramicist whose story shows the ceramic talent that flows into the town of Kasama. Born in the northern prefecture of Akita, Kondo aborted a career in the school system to dedicate her life to craft. Years travelling, and a period spent training in the nearby town Mashiko, led her eventually to set up her studio in Kasama. Her work widely loved in Japan, for both its pattern work, and rich organic feel of its colours.

Size: 3.5cm high, and weigh approximately 500g. They are also available in a smaller size.

About Aya Kondo

The work of Aya Kondo comes from a quiet obsession. A brief career as a public employee, and then time spent travelling in Asia led her eventually to pottery training in Mashiko. In 2001 in nearby Kasama, she established her own kiln, enveloped by nature. As the years pass, so has there been a gradual evolution in her style. A key element remains detailed arabesque patterning which she achieves by hand painting slip using a dripper. More recently Kondo has added deep moss green, Oribe type glazes in a patchwork alongside her trademark sweet yellowish brown. An important figure in the Kasama pottery scene for most of the last twenty years, Aya Kondo’s ceramics are a kind and refined presence in homes all around Japan.