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I studied sculpture during four years of my university.
There were lessons for making male and female nudes with clay.
Statue of nudes is the unique aesthetics of Europeans in Christian society.
In the past, married women are not allowed to show their skin in front of others.
However, in Japanese houses, doors are not locked.
Men and women took even their showers at a same place a few hundreds years before.
So Japanese won't have an erotic sensation for nudes.
On the contrary, we might find people in bathrobe more sexy.
I was thinking at that time that what are fine arts indeed for the Japanese.
It is probably that compared with modern arts, ceramic is more suitable for the Japanese
So I changed my direction for making ceramics.
All the Japanese Fine Arts College teach European fine arts.
These colleges are very conserved.
I am specially fond of hats.
I wear hats even in my painting studio.
But I was ordered to take off my hat.
In my imagination, the fine arts is a world about freedom.
So I asked why I couldn't wear a hat.
And I had a quarrel with all my teachers,
We even grappled with each other.
But I lost at last.
And I had been ignored by my teachers the next four years.
I started thinking at that time that what is for me the fine arts.
Later I thought it might be crafts.
I chose to make ceramics after my graduation of university.
However, in that age, ceramists aimed at making the most advanced works.
Everyone was making big ceramics with heavy and complicated decorations.
They had rich implications as their goal.
But my works are of no rich implications.
They are some food containers for daily life.
My works are accomplished until food are served on them at table.
They are simple things.
So the previous generation asked : "Can these things be called works?"
I was criticized a lot.
"You are done by making these things" Something like that.
The chance which allowed me to get a leap
is about the white plates used by Dutch civilians in 17th-century.
At my first sight of these plates, I thought here they were.
Both their inside and outside are beautiful, with a sculpture feeling.
I considered them as the things that I was always looking for.
In order to make such a plate by my own techniques,
I have spent the whole three years.
I didn't know how to make it for most of time.
I was thinking hard during these three years, I tried and I failed for many times.
However these efforts can't be considered as complete waste now.
What I want to make are not the most advanced things that ceramics aimed at.
I hope to extend the range.
Even in things that we see and know in our daily life,
we can discover a new side.
When the Japanese economy had passed its developed age and was on the decline,
there were some people who shared the same opinions with me.
Everyone was creating alone.
There were such people in all fields,
such as people who make glass, carpentry, clothing, etc.
I hoped to gather these people of number one class all around the country.
Under this state of mind,
I wanted to use dwelling—a living space to create an art gallery.
"Baicao" is located in mountains of Tajimi, Gifu.
I was logging in the mountains
and made a courtyard.
And I have transformed a two-story building at about 400 square meters.
In front of "Baicao",
Art galleries transformed from old dwellings are very rare in Japan.
The art galleries in Japan at that time were all like small art museums with whites walls.
Tea ceremony is popular in Japan.
But it doesn't take place in a white space.
We are used to pick up things to observe in a dark room.
We try our best to face these articles and observe them carefully.
so that we can feel better messages from the articles.
I hope all guests who come to "Baicao" can take off their shoes and put down their bags,
just like at their own home.
Face to face attentively with these articles.
The beauty in my eyes is not on the top,
but scatter here and there.
A lot of beauty scatters in the daily life.
I hope everyone can discover the beauty in daily life. This is what I want to express.
"Baicao" provides exactly some clues and inspirations.
All in all, my theme is the daily life.