Kagami Shukai--Saying Goodbye to a Ki-Seto Master

I've had the great privilege to have met many amazing ceramic artists here in Japan, and for that I am truly grateful. Many, thankfully, are still with us and creating, yet a few have left us and some before their time should have come., Furutani Michio and Udagawa Hosei to name but two amazing potters gone before 53. Last year tragedy struck another potter I greatly respected, Kagami Shukai. He was killed in a traffic accident and the world lost not only one of the finest people one could ever hope to meet, yet arguably the greatest Ki-Seto potter Japan has ever known. I wrote this on our e-yakimono.net pages some years ago: http://www.e-yakimono.net/html/kagami-shukai.html and this as well in 1997: http://www.e-yakimono.net/html/trio-sv.html
The Nomura Museum in Kyoto will be hosting a retrospective Kagami Shukai exhibition from April 27th-May 9th; they have a homepage and hopefully you can view the URL on the DM photo seen in this listing. For those of you not fortunate enough to be able to get to the exhibition there is a nice catalog and please email the musuem or Robert if interested in getting one. Kagami's son Masakane has taken over the kiln and like Furutani Kazuya, I'm sure will create works that make his father proud. Lost in thought, lost in the moment, lost in Kagami's Ki-Seto visions.