Fieldwork E

Makoto Tajiri (Member of Japan Craft Design Association, Inc.)

1949 Born in Hamamatsu City, Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan
1974 Graduated from Department of Industrial, Interior, and Craft Design, Musashino Art University
1980 Opened "Tobo Tajiri" at Seto City, Aichi Prefecture
1990 Awarded Japan Craft Prize at "Japan Craft Exhibition "90", Awarded Silver Prize at "Craft Competition in Takaoka "90"
1995 Awarded Prize of the minister of Trade and Industry at "Earthen Pots Competition," Yokkaichi City, Mie Prefecture
1969 Awarded Judges' Special Prize at "Earthen Pots Competition," Yokkaichi City, Mie Prefecture

November 11th

In the morning:
Thea (one of the prize-winners) joined our group.

In the afternoon:
We arrived at Atelier Tajiri. Over tea, we listened to Mr. Tajiri talk about his studio and working methods. We observed him working on a piece of pottery.
We worked on the wheel ourselves.

After coming back from Seto, we discussed how to spend the second day of the fieldwork. We determined to focus on observing the relationship between the craftsman's perceptional capabilities and working process.

November 12th

In the afternoon:

We got together at the station near his studio and had a lunch of grilled meat, a common Seto meal. Afterwards, we asked Mr. Tajiri to work on a piece of pottery blindfolded. We left his studio late in the evening and rushed back to edit the films we recorded.

We stayed all night at the college. Editing work lasted till noon on the final day.

November 13th

We were very busy editing the films. We were only able to make it by delaying the beginning of our presentation.

Our group visited the studio of Mr. Tajiri, a ceramist living in Seto near Nagoya City. The world of ceramics was new to most of us, and we were most interested in his perceptions; which ones would a ceramics professional use and how would he transform clay into a piece of art? His studio was infinitely interesting. When Mr. Tajiri worked on the pottery wheel, the clay changed shape as if it were alive; this was incredible. We were moved all the more deeply after we tried working on the wheel ourselves. We were also impressed by the fact that he worked not only through intuition, but also taking into consideration the clay's rate of contraction when fired at high temperatures, and his use of a guage-like instrument (called a Tombo), which reproduced the shape of a piece.

After our visit on the first day, we talked about how we would spend the second day at his studio preparing for our presentation. We were interested in so many things there. In the end, we agreed not to interpret the craftsman's perceptional capabilities, but to focus on them while allowing the audience to share with us as much as possible the discernible but inexplicable "intensity".

On the second day, we prepared several video cameras and filmed Mr. Tajiri working. We concentrated on the relationship between the movement of his whole body and his hands. We also tried to compare the respective conditions of him working in his usual manner and working blindfolded. No matter how he worked, we found that the number of the wheel's rotations synchronized with the rythmic motion of his body. We wondered at the border between the clay and the hands. There were some operations in which he failed because he was blindfolded, and some in which he succeeded despite the blindfold.

Afterward, we were served tea. Mr. Tajiri's son joined us and chatted in English with the international prizewinners of Nagoya Design Do. We all had a pleasant time over tea talking with his family and the English-speaking designers. We were very satisfied by the experience, and admired the depth of Mr. Tajiri's work. We then began to prepare for our presentation.

"If possible, the product should be handy, inexpensive, and beautifully formed, but in the end, the user is the judge."

"We cannot say that all machine-made products are no good. Some shapes are better made by machines, and some can only be produced beautifully by hand."

"Rhythms are important. When your heart is in turmoil, something always goes wrong. When you keep working on the process, you calm down and tranquility embraces you."

"A craftsman needs each and every sense; Our work is dependent on all five."

Our experience was interesting and exceptionally wonderful.

Our interest lay in the perceptions of the craftsman. However, we tried to make our presentation not an interpretation, which would limit the information we gave the audience, but a sharing of the skill we witnessed at the studio, and the excitement and surprise we experienced there. We also tried to convey the interesting points we had discovered. We aimed to convey what we had seen, in hopes that each member of the audience would discover something in turn.

We used multiple video cameras so that the audience could see the craftsman working from various angles simultaneously. However, we could not solve the technical problems and finally edited the films and made our presentation using a single monitor.

We listed and arranged what we needed to convey in order to present the film with as little explanation as possible. We did not intend to present our understanding, but a way to get closer to the experience of Mr. Tajiri's work. In this way, although it goes without saying that the audience could never have exactly the same experience as we did, at least by sharing what we saw at his studio, sometime in the future all of us might appreciate and examine what was happening there.


Thea L.Bjerg Competion Winner Denmark	Sarawut Chutiwongpeti Competion Winner Thai	Oded Ezer Competion Winner Israel

Kayoko Yano Competion Winner Japan	Yuichiro Matsui Musashino Art University	Takehide Sawada Aichi Pref. University of Fine Arts & Music, graduate school

Tsuyoshi Nagura International Design Center NAGOYA Inc.	Takako Hikosaka International Design Center NAGOYA Inc.