Pottering with intent between Japan and Hawaii
By ANGELA JEFFS
Eat your heart all those who dream of creating
a sustainable life in "real
Japan." Most people have no inkling as to how to find a way,
but some do, and Tom Morris and his wife, Kae, are two of them.
They live in Gokurakuji, on the narrow-gauge Enoden Line running along
the Shonan coast between Kamakura and Fujisawa. The small, quaint station
spills out crowds to view misted hydrangeas during the rainy season,
but walk across the red bridge and turn right, and it's a different world.
The house is not only in traditional style, but enormous. Upstairs,
in the room used for teaching, with a scroll reading "Agape Ceramic
Studio" hanging in the "tokonoma" (art alcove), Tom explains
that it was built somewhere between 60 and 80 years ago; no one seems
quite sure. "We had a visitor at one of our exhibitions, an
elderly man well over 60, who remembered living here as a child."
Tom dates his interest in Japan and Japanese food and ceramics
back to when he was a teenager in California. "I worked in
a Japanese sushi bar as bus boy, playing softball and golf with
the staff, absorbing
a
lot of stuff. In America, we grab any old plate to eat off. At
age 15 I was watching staff matching the food to the utensil it
was served
in
or eaten off."
He first came to Japan in 1990 at age 25. He taught history and
English at a college and also in the ESL "eikaiwa" system, and was
introduced to Kae by mutual friends. He began studying pottery in Kamakura
with a teacher who "first introduced me to the 'rakuyaki'
firing style, and then everything else he knew."
Three years later, Tom returned to the U.S. to study theology. "I
guess I was looking for a way to fuse my feelings about art and spirituality." When
he came back to Japan in 1996, he saw himself in the long term
teaching ceramics privately in a traditional setting. But things
moved faster
and more positively than ever imagined.
"
We moved to Zaimokuza in Kamakura, where I began teaching and Kae went
daily to her job in Yokohama," he explains. "People began
to hear about my classes, and I advertised locally. Our Web site
generates a wider interest."
When the Kamakura house grew too small, it took around four months
to find the kind of accommodation they wanted. Now they offer B & B
(bed and breakfast) facilities to the general public, and ceramics
classes for six to eight people at a time twice a week three times
a month.
"
You sign on for a three-month course of nine classes. These are open
and of mixed ability. I teach the basic building techniques, after which
students are generally confident enough to say, 'I want to make something
like this.' " Tom says many ceramic schools are rigid, but not Agape.
(The name, by the way, means "universal love.")
He describes his own work as a potter as spiritual with a Zen twist. "I'm
interested in 'mingei'-style ceramics, meaning folkloric in the
practical functional sense. I make pots and plates for people to
use in their
everyday lives."
He shows examples of his own and students' work. Being so close
to the Pacific, one glaze is the result of being dipped in seawater.
Another
incorporates "konbu" seaweed. Here is a "nabe" stew
pot with an octopus on the lid. There, "sumi-e" ink has been
rubbed into the slip for an interesting crackled mosaic effect. "I
try to respect tradition, but adding a Californian twist. Japanese
people either like it or simply accept it."
When I query the comfort of drinking from an especially rough surface,
Tom quotes the Japanese aesthetic of "wabi-sabi." "I
believe art is about breaking the borders and parameters of our
expectations. Normally when we lift a cup or glass to our lips,
we rarely think about
it. An uneven surface like this offers a new sense of stimulation
and consideration."
On June 30 Tom will fly to Hawaii for a couple of days. He and
Kae have bought an acre (0.4 hectare) of land on "the Big Island" of
Hawaii itself. The idea is to build a B & B where he can teach
and welcome guests from the States, or Japanese who fancy studying
in a different
environment.
There is another plot.
"
There are some 60 other B & Bs in and around Volcano village
-- it's OK, we're on the safe side of the crater! Kae is a very
good cook,
and
we've applied for a certified kitchen legally allowed to serve
food. We visualize bikes with riders carrying dishes of food, Japanese
style,
to order. Being a niche market, it could do very well."
The project in Hawaii is called Enso, after the simple circle drawn
with a wide brush stroke that in Zen Buddhism represents infinity,
the void,
the "no thing," or perfect meditative state of satori
(enlightenment).
" I'm going to finalize things with the contractor, hoping to break ground
by the end of the year. Expect Enso to be open by the end of next
year or early 2006 at the latest."
Tom is not religious. He doesn't like what the world has done to
the word "god," preferring to quote St. John of the Cross: "In
the end we will all be judged according to love."
He recalls a retired man contacting him from the States, who made
and collected Christian-based Nativity scenes. "He wanted
one from Japan, so I asked an elderly Japanese student to try his
hand. He was
not Christian,
but still found the experience very interesting and subtle."
On the step in the "genkan" (hallway) my shoes were neatly
lined, ready to be stepped into. Kae was not in sight, having two
friends to stay. But she was just as good a host as her husband,
in her own
very Japanese way.
The Japan Times: June 26, 2004
|
 Kamakura
is a town that boasts an abundance of historical sites such
as the Kamakura Great Buddha, which is a national treasure, five "rinzai"
school Zen temples, and the Hachimangu Shrine.
Tom's
ceramic studio is within walking distance from Komyoji Temple in Zaimokuza,
which is located very near to the beach. It is a two-story wooden house
with a thicket of bamboo behind it. By all appearances it is secluded
and serene. A wooden nameplate hanging at the entrance has Tom Morris'
name written in (kanji) Chinese characters. As Tom invites me into his
house in the Japanese language, the combination of a westerner's figure
surrounded by Japanese architecture, in a typical Japanese landscape
setting, creates somewhat of a mysterious atmosphere.
Inside the room upstairs, I found an electric potter's wheel and a newly
thrown sake bottle that had just been removed from the wheel. A popular
proverb, "Appearances are deceptive" might be an appropriate
phrase to describe what Tom is like. He is a gentleman with a western
appearance and a Japanese traditional mind.
 In
late 1999, Tom renovated a section of the second floor of his house
and opened a pottery school and named it Agape Ceramic Studio (ACS).
"Agape" is defined as, "Self-giving loyal concern that
freely accepts another and seeks his or her good."
Tom says he named his school hoping to form friendships crossing national
boundaries and cultural differences. It is one of his goals
to "restore internal values and pleasures" in the
modern society where people are finding it more difficult to appreciate
simple and traditional lifestyles.
Currently about 10 students are learning ceramics at ACS. Through
teaching pottery, Tom hopes to promote cultural exchanges as
well as teaching English. Thus far, most of his students are Japanese.
It is a unique place, which he calls a "cross-cultural school,"
where a European-American teaching Japanese traditional crafts to Japanese
people in English has been realized.
Tom's first encounter with Japanese culture was made when he was a 15-year-old
high school student in Los Angeles. Tom happened to get a part-time
busboy/waiting job at a nearby Japanese restaurant where he was introduced
to the concept of "the harmony of food and plates." It was
such an interesting and awe inspiring experience that Tom first thought
about the idea of living in Japan someday.
 At
UCLA Tom majored in world history and political science. After
leaving university, he taught at a high school in Los Angeles for three
years. It was 10 years ago that Tom first made his way to Tokyo. He
landed a teaching job at a jr. college in Tokyo. While teaching social
studies and English there, Tom took advantage of his holidays to explore
various countries in Europe, the Middle East, South East Asia and New
Zealand. These trips helped Tom to broaden his horizons and develop
his sense of "worldview."
It was during this period that Tom met his wife Kae. His desire to learn
something "very Japanese" must have been recalled by his first
encounter with Japanese culture back in high school, because Tom eventually
began to attend pottery classes.
However, it was a few years later that Tom was captivated by
Japanese ceramics in a very real sense. In 1993, he went back
to the United States to attend graduate school at the School of Theology
at Claremont in California to study philosophy and theology. Tom returned
to Japan in 1996 and studied ceramics for two years under a "rakuyaki"
master in Kamakura and came to know the peculiarly Japanese spiritual
and esthetic world of "wabi"-"sabi." Fascinated
by this unique world, Tom became absorbed in ceramics.
According to the definition given in "Kojien," a comprehensive
Japanese language dictionary, "wabi"-"sabi"
denotes, "a simple and austere lifestyle devoid of ostentation
or vanity," or "to appreciate a quiet life," or "something
aged and graceful."
 Such
a mystic world was originated by the tea masters of the Momoyama Period
in Japan (1568 - 1600) and then refined by the "rakuchawan"
tea bowls that were uniquely made by Senno Rikyuu and Choujiro using
Japanese traditional techniques. Over 400 years of time has passed since
then, and in this modern society, the Japanese traditional virtues and
aesthetic sense are gradually being eroded by technological development
and the penetration of western culture. The fact that Tom, an American,
has been enchanted by "wabi"-"sabi" seems to go
beyond his personal interest. It reminds us of something precious that
the Japanese people seem to have almost forgotten.
Tom favors the ceramics represented by "rakuyaki"
pottery, which are made by using a handheld pinch method, perhaps
because he finds a great charm in the asymmetrical shapes and in the
"contorted world" rather than in the "orderly shaped
world" of some styles of ceramics.
Tom's "ko shigaraki" vases, made from old traditional clay,
or his "tatara" plates with courageous design patterns, as
well as his "rakuyaki" tea bowls show how enthusiastic Tom
is about Japanese ceramics. Above all, the very fact that these works
have been created by a non-Japanese person impresses me tremendously.
 Tom
started using the electric wheel only two years ago, however he is devoted
to acquiring the skills and expertise by attending a pottery class weekly
in Tokyo.
While Tom hopes that ACS will become a space for cross-cultural exchanges,
he also dreams of moving to Izu and having his own "noborigama"
wood-fire kiln someday. I am quite sure that it will not be
long before Tom Morris will become a Koizumi Yakumo or a *Lafcadio Hearn
of the Heisei Period. |
