Japan Ceramic Society Award Exhibition

Last week in Tokyo veteran ceramic artist and living legend Koie Ryoji was awarded the prestigious Japan Ceramic Society's Gold Award. Koie joins an illustrious list of past winners and that list up to 2003 can be viewed here: http://www.e-yakimono.net/html/awards-jcs-all-winners.html A more up-to-date list can be viewed in Japanese at: http://www.j-ceramic.jp/prize/successive.html A few noted speakers talked about Koie saying how even today they were shocked to remember Koie's ground-breaking 'Return to Earth' work of the late 60s. Others said that Koie was a walking piece of art himself! Nevertheless, Koie exhibited many recently fired works and sorry to say it was a mixed-bag. Someone really has to edit his work as he just throws so much of the great out with what are really sorry lots. Anyway, a great honor to a great artist; almost all potters here aspire to win the JSC Award, and this year it went to Mihara Ken, another
favorite of our gallery and where Mihara made his online world debut back in 2001. Here are a few photos from the exhibition, held at Wako from August 22-30.