Pottery for the Poles

Pottery for the Poles Pottery for the outdoor generation. 1% for the planet certified. Artistry by Romina

Japan hasn’t had enough spotlight on my feed. I joked that it was a ‘business trip’ yet I struggled to find a workshop e...
26/05/2026

Japan hasn’t had enough spotlight on my feed. I joked that it was a ‘business trip’ yet I struggled to find a workshop experience that I felt was authentic and practical given time constraints. So I couldn’t believe my luck that we caught the last day of the Mashiko pottery fair. A 4 hour escape out of Tokyo felt like the adventure necessary to earn my shopping haul. A bucket list experience I never knew existed.

Yet it wasn’t the thousands of beautiful ceramics that lingers with me, but the weathered faces of experienced potters that would quietly nap behind their stalls, then wake with such humility and warmth to share their life’s work. They taught us the beauty of thick, heavy pieces, the precision of a perfect pour, and the quiet value that comes from decades devoted to pottery in Mashiko.

14/05/2026

I was lucky to have a chance to visit the Mashiko Pottery Fair last week. A massive event that takes place twice a year and draws in as much as 600,000 people annually. It is supposedly the largest pottery market globally by production standards. It is situated in the small and idyllic ‘pottery town’ of Mashiko, which is known as the place where the master potter Hamada Shoji used to live and work for a long time. About 700 pottery stalls and 50 permanent shops with sellers from all around Japan gather there for an entire week.

The festival was the perfect opportunity to get to meet the full sensei of Japanese craftsmanship, who are exceptionally friendly and very open to sharing their respectable and extensive history in ceramic arts, with unbelievable patience as I awkwardly navigated Google translate. What an introduction to Japan, what a country🇯🇵

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