I made some movies:
- http://youtu.be/FkhGZV_EPwc About the exhibition.
- http://youtu.be/_F4vxCZ_DNQ About the historical surroundings of the show.

- http://www.flickr.com/photos/swanica/sets/72157628372545471/ A slideshow of the exhibition and the surroundings.

Tegelen is a village in the province of Limburg in the Netherlands. It was an independent municipality until 2001, when it was merged into the municipality of Venlo.
The name of the glacial era of Tiglian (part of the Pleistocene) is derived from Tegelen because of the many fossils found there from this era in the local clay.
During excavations in Tegelen Roman pottery and tile ovens were found. The Sint-Martinus church is mentioned in diocesan and monasterial archives dating back to the year 800. Because of its strategic location, various castles and reinforced farms were soon established. The most important of these were the Castle of Holtmühle (with the barn Tiendschuur) and the Munt. During the Middle Ages, there were several battles in and around Tegelen, because of its proximity to the walled city of Venlo.
Early in the 19th century Tegelen developed into a regional centre of industry. At first, tile and pottery factories were established, and later that century, metallurgy and tobacco factories. After 1900 agriculture was added to the mix. Pottery and related industries were very successful in Tegelen from 1750 until World War II. They specialized mainly in the low fire red earthenware with a lead glaze. The pots were decorated with slips in many colors and engraved.

The centuries old expertise in ceramics and pottery is kept alive by courses held in the ceramic center of Tiendschuur.

On March 11, 2011, Japan was hit by a significant earthquake.
The world-famous pottery village, Mashiko, about 90km northeast from Tokyo was also heavily hit and the potters’ houses, kilns, workshops and their works were severely damaged. Mashiko has a 10,000 year old pottery tradition, in this highly regarded pottery village in Japan.
Ceramics Center Tiendschuur Museum in the Netherlands is 75 years and treats its visitors on an exhibition of ceramics of 15 potters from this village from a country par excellence: Japan!
The Tiendschuur shows the finest ceramics in the world and supports its creators.
The proceeds from these exhibition sales go to the potters in Mashiko and the Mashiko pottery fund.

This Saturday I will go to Holland to be at the opening of the Exhibition of 15 Mashiko Potters in the Tiendschuur Ceramics Museum in Tegelen in the Netherlands. Through the hard work of quite some people it was made possible. But money is still very much needed. Please, find it in your heart to donate to this fund to save the village of Mashiko. I know it is not an easy time for everybody and it is present giving time. Please, see what you can do and look at the information for donations on the bank info picture.

In the meantime, it is almost a month ago that I wrote a blog. I have been very busy. First of course, I have my radiation every weekday around 11am. I often go on my bicycle and like that a lot. Only 6 times are left. The last 5 times will be “Boost” radiations: not so strong as the former ones, but cover the whole breast from up front. It has now a nice pink color and has some burning sensation underneath my arm. But I think I am doing pretty well and have still quite some energy left.

I sold 2 cars for a friend of ours. We help each other. You place the add, answer emails and telephone calls and show the car to prospective buyers. Not that I know much about cars, but I sold 4 of our cars during the many years we live in California now and it is fun to meet all kinds of people, who are mostly very nice. Then I am socially quite active and meet with lots of friends. We went to our oldest son Roland (still for his birthday) and worked on taxes and finances (which always continues).

I did do a workshop at the De Anza College with the Taiwanese ceramic artist Ah Leon. He is so technical in the making of a teapot! I have lots to learn. He also is very talented in making objects from clay looking like wood like teapots (of course) and a life size wooden bridge or a classroom with wooden desks and chairs.






I saw the wonderful big exhibition of the Ceramic Annual of America in the Festival Hall of Fort Mason in San Francisco. Po Zhou also had his work there as well as Barbara Sebastian. Just beautiful!








And then lots of other little things, especially when Adriaan returns from travels. Of course, he is jet-legged and then a stormy guy as always

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnyUNEK90Ls

A movie made of my show by Steve Tootell, Head of Creative and Performing Arts at the Sacred Heart International School in Tokyo:

http://gallery.me.com/s.tootell#100330

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Also, watch my video on YouTube at the end of this blog. The big video of the dance performance by KAN-ICHI Segawa is at the moment in the editing phase by Rob Oudendijk and Yuka-san Hayashi and will come soon.

Enjoy the show!

The showroom with the Horsehair art.

Adriaan and I.

My new wings!

The Kamakura-Red room!

Beautiful flowers from my family-in-law.

KAN-ICHI dancing on the song “Expressions” composed by Helen Jane Long, the song which was the inspiration for this Wing Show.

YOU TUBE VIDEO 1 !!

YOU TUBE VIDEO 2!!!

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- Yixing Ceramic Museum:
Today, I received the news from Guangzhen “Po” Zhou, that my Kamakura Red Teapot is received by the Yixing Ceramics Museum and permanently accepted in their special exhibition hall for international teapots! This is wonderful. Unfortunately, I could not be there. But I saw the museum last April. The Yixing Ceramic Museum  is the first one established in China and has an abundant collection of exhibits. See my blog of May 5, 2010.

- The Shanghai “Pot” Museum:
Another Kamakura Red Teapot was exhibited during the Shanghai exhibition, last April and will be in the permanent collection of the Shanghai “Pot Musuem”. See my blog of May 5, 2010.

-  The Jingdezhen Ceramic Museum:
Last year, “Po” Zhou brought my Kamakura Red “Peony” Vase to Jingdezhen for the 2009 International Contemporary Ceramics Exhibition. Afterward, the vase was accepted in the permanent collection of the Jingdezhen Ceramic Museum. Jingdezhen is known as the “Porcelain Capital”, because it has been producing quality porcelain pottery for 1700 years. See my blog of November 28, 2009.

It all started when Guangzhen “Po” Zhou chose my “Kamakura Red Teapot” for the “International Contemporary Teapot Exhibition with the title: “Beyond the function” in conjunction with the NCECA conference in April 2009. See my blog of January 14, 2009.

Then he made a poster of “100 Contemporary Teapots of West” selected from 6 exhibitions and my teapot is one of them. See my blog of April 13, 2009.

After that in July 2009, “Po” Zhou brought my “Peony Vase” to Jingdezhen and also my teapot to Yixing.
Thank you so much, “Po” Zhou!

Please, look on his website and read all about the trip he organized in China and all his accomplishments and beautiful artwork: www.chineseclayart.com

It is situated on the Tsurugaoka Hachimangu Shrine grounds in a beautiful setting surrounded by lots of trees and of course, the autumn colors were astounding, especially the yellow from the Gingko tree.


The featured exposition is about The 800th Memorial Anniversary of Honen Shonin (1133-1212), who studied Buddhism and found the true way of universal salvation through the practice of nembutsu revealed in the Buddhist scripture text by Shan-tao. Honen established the nembutsu as an absolutely independent practice. In the spring of 1175, he founded Jodo Shu, or the Pure Land Denomination, in Japan. The center of his teaching was at Yoshimizu, where Chion-in, the Head Temple of Jodo Shu, now stands.
Masako, wife of warrior Minamoto no Yoritomo, the first shogun who founded the Kamakura government shogunate, was a follower of Honen. And so the center of the Jodo Shu sect is established at the Komyoji, the temple in my neighborhood. Look also at the following blogs: Oct. 18, 2009; April14, 2009; July 31, 2008, and Sept.23, 2007.

This is Yoshitada Shonin a treasure from Kamakura City and sculpted from wood in the 12th century here in Kamakura, in the time when all the sculpting and carving of wood started because all of the temple building and developed into the Kamakura Bori.

They also had some wonderful maps hanging from the Komyoji.
I was allowed to take some picture from a book, because it was sold out.

This map is made in 1720. To the south is the beach with some some greenlands and to the north it is build against a rocky hill.
A lot of temples in Kamakura protect themselves in that way with their back against a hill.

This second map was drawn in 1850 and again you can clearly see the hills surrounding the temple and a small river flowing in to the sea. This map was about 2 by 2 meters big!






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Tomoko-san high fires her work in a gas kiln.

Vase with Mishima, stamp and slip, technique.








Some figurine statues.

And her daughter Nanako-san gave a performance with gitar playing and singing.



Watch the YOU TUBE movie!

At this interview I was assisted by Sally Tamura, who I met at the Kamakura Bori Museum where we had taken our Experimental Kamakura Bori Course and she organized this appointment with Gotoh Keiko-san. Sally Tamura studied Buddhist art religion at a university. She translated where ever necessary.

We had our meeting in the store of the family: “Hakkodo”, which means “studying old objects in history”. During the Meiji Era, which began in the latter part of the 19th century, the production of Buddhist sculpture decreased. Gotoh Itsuki, the 26th master head of the family and Gotoh Unkyu, the 27th, and their fellow craftsmen developed the art form as a means of creating handicrafts and works of industrial art that are familiar to this day. In 1900 Gotoh Unkyu opened a shop and studio named “Hakkodo” in front of the Tsurugaoka Hachimangu Shrine in Kamakura.

First, we went upstairs where there is an exhibition of Kamakura Bori works by Gotoh Itsuki and Unkyu. They each have their own style and they create their own designs. Gotoh Itsuki’s work is beautiful and the Kamakura Bori color has almost a little of an orange shine (see the picture to the left of the “Phoenix Bird”). Gotoh Unkyu, the 27th master, developed “a deep cut” in his work specific to him. It also showed some small wooden statues. The ones in the picture are carved by Kamakura Bori artists in the Edo Period (1603-1867). Then there were some books showing some of the templates they would use as drawings, copy it on the wood and then carve it out. Also, some cabinets showed Kamakura Red Bori. The left side shows work from artists working under the 26th master Itsuki and the right side shows work from Bori artists under Unkyu, the 27th head of the Gotoh family.



Then we sat down for some talk about the history and technique.
The beginning of Kamakura Bori Art started from Zen Buddhism with the sculpting and lacquering of Buddhist images, furniture and lacquered incense cases modeled after those brought from China in the Song Dynasty style for the newly build temples. Gotoh Keiko was not really sure if her fore-fathers had been monks themselves, but they may have had some high rank of monk. In the picture are real life wooden statues from praying monks preserved behind glass in the art gallery in the “Sanmon”, main gate of the Komyoji Temple.

During the next centuries the techniques and styles stayed the same. The Buddhist statues are incredibly finely carved, especially the folds of the clothing are just like real and all the lines are so straight. Every piece was related to religion. Incense boxes repeat certain designs of flowers like the Peony(see to the right the picture of an Incense case from the Muromachi era of the Kamakura Kokuho-kan) or the “Guri” designs, a kind of deeply carved arabesque, suggesting a flow of water (see to the left the picture of the Incense case GURI from the Kamakura Bori Material Museum).


An anti-Buddhist movement started in the beginning of the Meiji Period in 1868 and this gave rise to the destruction of Buddhist temples all over the country. This is where they had to reinvent themselves and started making functional ware for all day life like trays, teacup holders, reading desks and mirror stands.

The biggest change in the technique was a different layer of lacquer style, called the “Hikuchi nuri” process, created by the masters Itsuki and Unkyu . In order to temper the shade of lacquerware and deepen the red color, Makomo (water oats powder obtained from a special plant) is applied (“nuri”) on the entire surface while the final layer of lacquering is half-dry (“hikuchi”). The red color also still deepens in time. They get the red pigment from lava rocks, because Japan is a volcanic island. Japan doesn’t have many minerals to make colors from. They imported them mainly from China. But they had this red from the Lava rocks.

So, because of this beautiful red pigment, the wonderful historical background and because I live here, I call my red glaze “KAMAKURA RED”!

In the future, Gotoh Keiko-san will see change in color for a deeper color research. Also, they may have to find other trees than the Katsura trees and the “urushi” sap, which is also used by other people as lacquer, may run out and needs to be replaced by another resource.


She showed us a beautiful ” Wave” plate from Kamakura near the sea, designed by her.

Then she showed a big plate she designed of grasses appropriate
for this time of year. It has a silver layer of lacquer in between.
That is why it looks so silvery!

Kamakura has of course a Kamakura Bori Museum: Kamakura Bori Kaikan.

It is situated in the middle of the city on the main street on the way to the Tsurugaoka Hachimangu Shrine, Kamakura’s most important shrine, which was founded by Monamoto Yoriyoshi in 1063, and enlarged and moved to its current site in 1180 by Minamoto Yoritomo, the founder and first shogun of the Kamakura government.

The Kamakura Bori Material Museum, Shiryukan is on the first floor.

When you enter there is kind of a little shrine. Inside all the names of the Kamakura Bori Master Artists are written. It takes at least 25 years of education and experience to become a Kamakura Bori artist.





They have quite a historical selection from some 400 works from the Muromachi Period (1338 – 1573) to the present, approximately 100 are on permanent display.

The works are all beautiful and individually striking. But some stuck out for me.

A small tray with the Phoenix bird designed by Itsuku Goto.

This Tsubakimon-oi (carrier box) was shouldered by shugen-ja, monks who lived in the mountains). The box held images of Buddha, sutra scrolls, and daily necessities. The doors are often, as from this one, decorated with camelias.

But I found one with Shiratori carved on one of the little sliding doors! Isn’t it beautiful?

This is a space for individual exhibits, which are also permanently on display. One of the modern works hanging on the wall.




Videos showing the history of Kamakura Bori and the process can be viewed in the video room.

In the museum shop one can purchase all the tools and materials needed to make Kamakura Bori. On the second floor and up of the Kaikan, classes are being offered and assemblies are being held by the Kamakura Masters Committee.