Dialogue - Takashi Ichikawa -

This is the first Ichikawa Takashi exhibition in two years.

In the midst of the enthusiastic atmosphere, most of the clay pots and fireproof plates were sold out on the first day of the exhibition.
"Gone on a journey" seems like a strange thing to say from the perspective of a gallery showcasing the works of artists.

Perhaps the reason I think this way about happy events is because I saw Ichikawa-san enjoying using what he created more than anyone else. "I wonder how many people I was able to inspire with that momentum."

Ichikawa's works make you want to use them rather than just display them.
Why is it that we can vividly imagine the scene that will unfold when we hold the piece in our hands, and feel such excitement in our hearts? What is it about its shape that makes us want to use it?

Some of you have had the chance to encounter Ichikawa's work, some were not able to fully enjoy it at the exhibition, and some are looking forward to encountering it in the future.

Please enjoy the conversation at your leisure over a cup of tea on this early summer afternoon.

"There are no windows in Ichikawa's works"

Please tell us what made you start thinking about making things.

Ichikawa: The first thing that comes to mind is my father's hands. That said, he wasn't creating any artworks, but just making everyday things like fixing the house or making mailboxes.

Have you been heading down the path of manufacturing since you were a child?

Ichikawa: Not that I was particularly interested in hockey as a child. At the time, there weren't many players, so I even participated in national tournaments. The turning point came when I was in the third year of junior high school, and my teacher asked me if I wanted to start an art club.

From hockey to the arts!

Ichikawa: I created an art club in high school and continued to be active, but the people who continued playing hockey looked shining, and I didn't want to lose to them, so I just drew Mt. Ibuki, which I could see from the window opposite where I could see them practicing. I was also frustrated that there were no teachers who could teach me specialized subjects. When it came time to decide on my future, I considered going to an art school or a university of the arts, but I realized that it was too late to start studying drawing. In the end, I decided to aim for art in the Faculty of Education.

After failing the National Center Test for University Admissions, he had to give up on his first choice school, so he took the exam to become a teacher's college in Hokkaido, far from his home, as practice for the second exam. What did he do there?

Ichikawa: Of course, I went to the school to study art, so I was planning to go on to "junior high school art," but it seems that I tried too hard and it backfired, and I got surprisingly good marks in five subjects, so they said, "Ichikawa-san, you're in the elementary school course." I was like, "Wha-aat?"

Huh?

Ichikawa: In addition, I felt like I didn't know how to depict the vast nature of Hokkaido, which has nothing but a wide horizon. I had only ever painted pictures in my life, so much so that I thought "art = painting" was the only thing I could do. But when I was moved and thought, "I'm going to paint the grandeur of Hokkaido!", the marshes and grasslands turned into just a single line. I didn't know the technique to express grandeur in a painting.

He said he felt the limitations of a flat surface.

Ichikawa: It all started when I went on a bicycle trip around Hokkaido over two summer holidays, and saw art in museums and met people who were making things in various fields everywhere I went. I heard something like "3D is interesting." I felt that I couldn't express the grandeur of nature in a picture, so I thought "Oh, so it's not just flat!" and started to turn my attention to sculpture.

Is it a sculpture?

Ichikawa: After that, I worked hard on sculpture. I worked hard. But something was not right. I worked hard and won awards, but I continued to feel like something was not right. Eventually, I started to wonder if I really wanted to become a teacher after graduating from university. I decided to go to graduate school because I wanted to broaden my sculpture.

How was graduate school?

Ichikawa: ...Actually, even in graduate school, I couldn't get into the research lab I wanted the most. The fact that I was making serious, award-winning works "that kind of thing" influenced the decision that "Ichikawa-kun should be here." In reality, I came here because I wanted to make works with more freedom, and there was a professor I wanted to be taught by. Again, it was a "Ehhhh" kind of feeling.

Doing things honestly and sincerely can lead in unexpected directions.

Ichikawa: It's not like the hockey I used to play, but I thought of the people who got into the lab that I couldn't get into as my rivals, and I tried to do my best while looking at them sideways. But one day, when a professor of sculpture from Tokyo University of the Arts came to see the students' work, after looking at my work, he said, "Hmm, it's not good. The only good thing about it is your back." The person I thought of as my rival was being praised.

ah….

Ichikawa: The only thing that was said to be good was the back. It was a human sculpture, but we didn't have enough time to work on the back. And to top it off, they said, "There are no windows in your work."

A window?

Ichikawa: What is a window, even though it creates the human form? I thought that, and then I fell into a slump. Now I'm gradually beginning to understand what it means. I think it was something that was not complete with the work itself, but that stimulated the viewer's imagination, and that the recipient's senses were carried back to me. If it's just one-sided and you say it's cool or beautiful, it's boring and has little appeal.

Being a tool

So what was your path to ceramics?

Ichikawa: After graduating from graduate school, I got a job as a temporary teacher at my alma mater, but I felt that I couldn't make it there. I wanted to go somewhere where I could make anything and everything, so I looked around for various art-related jobs, interviewed and rejected, and then I found a job at a Shigaraki ware pottery studio.

You could say it was a coincidence.

Ichikawa: I learned a lot and made many connections, but after three years of working there, I started asking myself again, "Am I heading in the direction I want to go?" and decided to go independent. This was right around the time of the bubble economy. After that, I had to leave the environment I had prepared for going independent, so I traveled around the country to talk to interesting ceramic artists, and once again became an apprentice under an artist I met.

What was your experience there like?

Ichikawa: Until then, I had thought of potters as "teachers," but the atmosphere there was completely different from that. It was quiet and calm, but passionate about pottery. They were engaged in a rich life, playing in nature and enjoying life. It also led me to realize that pottery, life, and play, which I had thought were separate, are actually intertwined.

You could say that pottery making, daily life, and play are all intertwined.

Ichikawa: I think pottery is not something that is separated into making works, living, and playing as a way to relax. Works can be tools for living, or tools for playing. On the other hand, ideas like "what would be nice if I made something like this?" can come to mind while living or playing. Before that, my attitude towards making things was different.

Mr. Ichikawa, you refer to your own works as "tools" rather than "vessels." Why is that?

Ichikawa: When it comes to tableware, there are cases where it feels complete. Like it is perfect in itself. But "tools" exist because of the user. They are not complete in themselves, but are something that can only be felt once you start using them. So, rather than wanting to sell them, I have a stronger desire for people to feel them.

It doesn't sound like you're selling the work itself.

Ichikawa: I just want to make it possible for people who pick up the tools to imagine a scene from their daily life or something fun. It's like preparing a scene or time beyond the tool. I think that each person's favorite shape and color will emerge from the way they use the tool. When the tool chips, gets dirty, or gets stained, leaving a trace of the person's history and the rhythm of their life, the vessel for that person is complete.

It seems like a lot more fun than just saying, "The way it ages is cool."

Ichikawa: It's like entrusting the tools to what comes next.... Prepare something fun. To be more specific, at that time, the presence of the vessel is not necessary. When you suddenly realize that the tools you are using for something that you think is fun are "Oh, right, this is Ichikawa's work."

The fireproof plates, which were popular at this exhibition, seem to be a synonym for Ichikawa's tool-like style.

Ichikawa: Originally, I didn't intend to make a fireproof plate; rather, it was inspired by an old stone plate I came across in an antique shop.

An old stone plate?

Ichikawa: The back of the stone plate was pitch black. I thought, "Oh, that's cool, I want to do this kind of work," but I wondered why it was black. Maybe it was used like a pot in the kitchen, and if so, I thought it would be interesting, and an image started to form. I wanted to make a tool that could be put on a fire.

I'm so excited!

Ichikawa: So I took the finished fireproof plate to the antique shop where I'd bought the stone plate, and a chef who happened to be there as a customer offered to try it out on the spot. I had only imagined using it for grilled meat or hotpot, but it ended up making a warm breakfast of toasted bread, sausages, tomatoes, and asparagus. This act struck me as something very innovative. From then on, I started holding many exhibitions combining cooking and utensils (tableware). The conversation was full of "this would taste delicious if you did it like this," and no one was talking about the tableware at the exhibition (laughs).

Plants, fire and water

Speaking of cooking and utensils (tableware), in recent years you have often been introduced as "an artist who enjoys tea."

Ichikawa: It's more like I'm playing with it than enjoying it. I originally did a little bit of Japanese tea ceremony, but it wasn't until I discovered the freedom and richness of Taiwanese and Chinese tea that I got to where I am now.

How did you first encounter Taiwanese tea and Chinese tea?

Ichikawa: When I started making earthenware teapots, which could be placed on a fire, following the fireproof dishes, a tea teacher who lived in Taiwan at the time liked the earthenware teapots. He said he wanted a few more, but I couldn't accept his order and make the exact same one, so I asked him if I could hold a solo exhibition in Taiwan. When I went to Taiwan to check out the place, he taught me about various Taiwanese teas.

Enjoy the tea!

Ichikawa: The students of that teacher also use their own tea utensils, and although the setting and atmosphere are completely different from person to person, each is beautiful, some people roast their own tea, and each tea is unique and delicious. I was shocked at how free they are. Everyone seems to be having fun.

I ended up becoming addicted to Taiwanese tea and Chinese tea.

Ichikawa: When I returned to Japan and served the tea I had learned about there, I was told, "Ichikawa, this is more delicious," and "There's an even more delicious tea," and so on, and I started to learn more and more about tea. My interest in tea grew more and more. Then, I started to become interested in the origins and the existence of old trees.

yes.

Ichikawa: I kept saying that I wanted to go, and then I got the opportunity to go to Xishuangbanna, a place deep in the mountains where tea originates. I was wondering which one was tea, when someone pointed to a big tree that looked up. It was a tree that you could climb to pick tea leaves.

Tea is a tree?! I can't imagine that.

Ichikawa: I always thought of tea as tea, but then I saw that tea is made from the leaves of trees. From that time on, I started to think that what I was doing was about plants, fire, and water. Then, the line between soup and tea started to disappear.

Will the line between soup and tea disappear?

Ichikawa: It goes beyond cooking and tea and makes you realize that everything is either plants, water or fire! The same goes for pottery. You don't need to separate things into categories; everything is connected at the root. It seems like most of the things around you are made of plants, fire and water. I've gotten to the point where I'm into "boiled tea" and I'm playing around with boiling flowers, leaves and all sorts of things. If you boil root vegetables, you get soup, and if you boil leaves, you get tea? You probably don't get it. (laughs)

Ichikawa's work is not about separate things like pottery or tea, nor is it about service; it is about playing with the expressions that are born from the encounter of "plants, fire, and water."

Ichikawa: When I do that, it's just so much fun. So I want people who pick up my work to feel like they want to play with it or have fun. Not like they're buying branded goods, but like they're enjoying each and every encounter to the fullest. To achieve that, I want to enjoy all my work more fully and spend more time feeling them. I'd be happy if the pottery and tools could be turned into money and people could "support me."

thank you very much.

Ichikawa: Thank you very much.

After our conversation, Ichikawa-san seems to be moving forward with a compass of surprise, discovery, curiosity and joy, no matter how misty or hazy the conditions. His hands, which are gradually resembling those of his father, who used to make ordinary everyday items, will no doubt continue to invite us into a world of playing with "plants, fire and water." We can't help but wonder what his next play will be!

Interviewer and writer: Noserumi