Toshiko Takaezu Research Paper

Toshiko Takaezu: Ceramic Artist of the East and West

The prominent ceramic artist, Toshiko Takaezu, is well known because of her exploration with ceramics as an independent visual medium. Because of her experimentation, she “revitalized her field with abstract shapes, painterly glazes, and lyrical installations” (Ruud 20). This Japanese-American ceramist took her knowledge from her schooling and a visit to Japan to create beautiful forms of art that are still appreciated today. According to William Grimes in his article about the artist, Takaezu is best known for her “closed pots and torpedo-like cylinders” that were created from natural forms she saw around her (Grimes). Takaezu’s practices helped ceramics to become not just a method of producing

During this period she experimented with functional ceramic forms by closing the mouth of vessels, causing them to turn into non-functional sculptural forms (Liu 50). Takaezu reaches back to traditional forms and techniques, as well as to “the social context of the Japanese mingei, or ‘arts of the people,’ movement” (Liu 56). The mingei movement, which had developed during the 1920s and 1930s in Japan, honored the beauty in everyday and utilitarian objects made by unknown craftsmen (Liu 54). Takaezu and others, such as her friend and fellow American artist Peter Voulkos, embraced this aesthetic sensibility and incorporated it into contemporary American ceramics (Liu 56).

According to Garth Clark, Takaezu’s work was fired in “a two-chamber, downdraft, and propane-fueled kiln” (Clark 51). Takaezu used two main clay bodies, porcelain and stoneware, each mixed according to her own requirements. She used mostly ash glazes and a plain white glaze with copper and other oxides. Her glazes were brushed, dipped, poured, and sprayed onto her forms. Apart from the tile pieces she created, all of her forms were thrown on the wheel (Clark

In Zen Buddhist and Daoist thought, it is in emptiness that usefulness is found (Liu 53). A ceramic bowl by itself is considered useless and only in its empty center, where substances can be collected and shaped, provides function (Liu 54). Once a ceramic vessel is closed, the emptiness is sealed inside of the form causing it to be useless. However, although the vessel is now unable to be used it still becomes useful as a sculptural work of art (Liu