What is your role and work at the kiln?

Technically, I don’t work for Kutani Choemon, and I’m not am employee. I created a company called Kamide Shigei [lit. “Kamide Fine Porcelain”] in August of 2014, which I represent.

Kamide Shigei engages in product planning and sales. Kutani Choemon is also receiving work through Kamide Shigei. Although Kutani Choemon’s older customer base is decreasing, new retailers are making contracts with Kamide Shigei to distribute their products.

Kamide Shigei is also responsible for designing and producing exhibitions and package design. Our “Kutani Seal” is also part of the Kamide Shigei brand, not Kutani Choemon.

What prompted the launch of Kamide Shigei?

When cash is low, there’s a tendency to prioritize business partners and employees over your own home. At Kutani Choemon, I would often go without a salary, and my wife and I needed additional income to survive.

It was 2006 when I graduated from the Tokyo University of the Arts and returned to my hometown. At that time, Kutani Choemon was in a tight spot. When I announced I was returning, my father said, “Don’t come back. You can’t make a living in a dying industry.”

Against his wishes, I came back anyway. Ever since I was little, I felt like the crafters at the kiln were like extended family. Although I was younger at the time, to hear the words “dying industry” was frustrating and sad to me. I hate that I can understand my father’s feelings more deeply now.

I was optimistic in thinking that just by sharing new activities and possibilities, business should naturally pick up. In any case, I was trying to share my ideas from outside the business, to let them know about various things. It’s strange to try changing things from the outside in, but I so greatly wanted to change my father’s and the crafters’ views through my activities.

And it was around this time that you started releasing a number of new pieces, like the porcelain bananas, miniature Puma brand bicycles, and floral-designed skulls, right?

I’d been doing a lot of things, but the kiln was always in dire straights. At some point, a close friend of mine introduced me to Jiro Dejima [a.k.a., “Mr. D.”] from Kanazawa. Mr. D. is a well-known expert on long-running and family-owned businesses, and I talked to him about various things, guidelines for how things should be, examples of other kilns and breweries.

Mr. D. gave me lots of advice that I still prize, like “The kiln should be the center of production.” But we were still struggling at that time, and we couldn’t readily find a creative solution. Of course, we knew it was a problem that couldn’t be solved quickly.

After that, I consulted with others, like Jun Nakagawa of Nakagawa Masashi Shop and Satoshi Okumura, an expert on business succession. A great-uncle of mine, who was himself an entrepreneur, was very accommodating, saying, “You young folks shouldn’t have to go through this much sacrifice just to do your job.”

Just about this time, the products of “Kutani Seal” and “Fuefuki” [lit. “Flautist”] from the Kutani Choemon line had begun to attract attention. That was also the time I launched Kamide Shigei. At any rate, my wife and I needed a stable source for our work independent of Kutani Choemon.

We opened the Kutani Seal Shop line in Yaoyoroz Honpo, [a novelty shop in Kanazawa] which handles products from all over Ishikawa Prefecture, on the same day as that the 2015 Hokuriku Shinkansen opened, and things started to change bit by bit.

You’ve had a variety of collaborations, including with Spanish designer Jaime Hayon and the sports brand Puma. Could you talk a bit about those?

In hindsight, the project with Jaime Hayon in 2010 may have been a bit reckless. However at the time I was more ignorant about management, and I just had the strong sense that we would not survive if I didn’t do something.

The first exhibition I held for Kutani Choemon was at the DesignTide Tokyo 2008 event at the Isetan Shinjuku department store. At the time, Jaime Hayon had the biggest exhibition on the same floor with me, and someone from Isetan approached both of us.

I’d enjoyed his work, and I dreamed of making a product with Jaime through Choemon. I reached out to him, and he was interested. To persuade my father, I showed him all the magazines in which Jaime had been featured.

It was a lot of fireworks at the time, but, unfortunately, not a fundamental solution. Of course, I really enjoyed the project with Jaime, and those pieces are still some of my most treasured items. I was able to enjoy the time with Hirotoshi Maruwaka, who’d asked me to produce the project, and it didn’t fail.

What’s your relationship with Hirotoshi Maruwaka?

After graduating university, I spend my first year back in Nomi making my own work and getting a driver’s license. I had the feeling of needing to do something, and just at that time, Maruwaka was asked by Puma Japan to promote a new bicycle for worldwide release. A famous graffiti artist had worked well in the United States, so he wondered how kogei would fare for Japan.

Folks in the Kutani industry would say, “I can’t make such a thing!” and then, “Isn’t there a Tokyo University of the Arts graduate making bananas that can do that job? Kamide’s son?” And so Maruwaka came to me.

That day, I’d been invited to a roast giblet restaurant, still wearing funeral attire after a Buddhist memorial service. Maruwaka was there. When he described the project, I answered rather lightly that I would do it. I was so impatient at the time to do be working on something, it was an easy decision.

However, the schedule became tight with only a month before five bicycles were to be announced. Thinking back on it, it was a poor decision and mess of a time. Five saddles, five handlebars, pedal reflectors, Puma emblems, key insert covers… And then I decided I’d like it at the store in Tokyo Midtown, which was scheduled to open in 2007, so we hurried to finish one more set, for a total of six bicycles.

Did you create and paint the Puma bicycles yourself?

Yes. I got help from crafters and artisans I knew, but most of it I did myself. Until then, I had only painted the “sticker” on my bananas piece, which Nomi City bought for collection after that. The bicycles were put up for auction through the Ishikawa Ceramic Commerce Cooperative Organization, with sales donated to the Wajima Lacquerware Commerce Cooperative Organization to help reconstruct the area affected by the 2007 Noto Peninsula earthquake. Nomi City also purchased one of those.

Would you say “Fuefuki” is old fashioned? The character of the painting and the expression of its subject seem typical of Mr. Kamide…

“Fuefuki” [“The Flautist”] was originally a pattern made with an older dyeing style from the Ming dynasty of China, which has been used for about 60 years at Kutani Choemon. Some of our crafters have also created variations on the musical instruments, like saxophone or piano, which I designed. Originally, each musician had a different face, but if there were discrepancies between what you selected to buy online and what you received, it would cause confusion. So now we try to make all the faces the same as much as possible.

However, there are pros and cons to that approach. The crafters might have really enjoyed drawing their own musicians or for people to select their favorite faces, but it also wouldn’t be in keeping with our current style.

Your most recent Instagram stories have been interesting…

I don’t really have ideas for story posts. I just take regular shots and upload them. I got a dog about five years ago and I’ve been walking with him for a while now, but this last spring I started posting the scenery and surroundings.

Spring is always marked by change, with things that didn’t flower yesterday suddenly blooming today. I only knew persimmons by their ripened vermillion fruit, but I discovered that a young persimmon looks like this, or a hydrangea bud looks like that.

I was inspired by these things and started taking pictures. Maybe part of it is because of the restraint imposed by the pandemic, not being able to go anywhere or meet anyone, but the time I spend walking my dog has become very important. The reaction I received on my Instagram was huge. I’m glad to have people viewing and being happy to see it.