This ‘ose bachi’ style bowl was made by Kaori Sasaki at her Nohara-ya kiln in Kagoshima.

In Kagoshima’s dialect, ’ose’ can mean someone older that oneself, and the form has its roots in the Kuro-mon ceramics once made in the Naeshirogawa region. Its generous space, is perhaps the origin of the name.

Fired with Sasaki’s glaze based on ash from the Sakurajima volcano, there is variety and interest in the surface decoration of each piece. There are also part of the set that led Kaori Sasaki to claim a prize at the annual year-end exhibition at the Japan Folk Crafts museum in Tokyo (the Mingeikan) in 2022.

This is the largest of the three ose bachi that the ceramicist makes, and is 19.5cm in diameter, and 7.5 cm high. It can be combined to with the small and medium size versions to create a set.

It weighs around 650g.

As handmade pieces, there are variations between each.

About Noharaya Kiln (Kaori Sasaki)

At her Nohara-ya kiln in the Kagoshima interior, Kaori Sasaki fires ceramics that reflect both her training on the southern island of Okinawa and the ceramic traditions of her home region. In Okinawa she was one of the early disciples of Yoneshi Matsuda of the Kita-gama kiln, which has become a renowned training ground for craft potters. Here she learned a dedication to materials, and techniques such as the dotted pattern work and high footed bowls for which Okinawa’s yachimun ceramics are known. But Kagoshima holds a tradition too that she began to explore on her return. In particular the Kuro-mon (Black Satsuma) lineage that occurred in several strains, such as Ryumonji and Naeshirokawa. These were ceramics used in everyday life, with forms that expressed their region’s history. At Nohara-ya, Sasaki collect materials local to her, such as clay deposits from rivers, and glaze ash from the Sakurajima volcano. Her work is the summation of the influences and skills that inform her ceramic imagination. It expresses too a modern spirit of Kuro-mon, ceramics with beauty and Kagoshiman terroir, that are a pleasure to use.