With a recent visit from guest artist Yoshihirio Mizokami, the UNM Art Education Program continued its long-standing tradition in teaching traditional and contemporary methods of creating hand-made functional pottery.
Mizokami, who is a stoneware potter working in the tradition of Karatsu, worked with students on a daily basis in the pottery studio during his three months at UNM, said Kathryne Cyman, art education instructor. He also gave demonstrations for UNM students and at several local high schools.
Cyman said though Mizokami would be considered less than proficient in English, he had no problem communicating with students.
"He communicated through art," said Saori Hakamata, one of Cyman's students.
Mizokami's time at UNM was also spent attempting to become the first person to successfully use the Karatsu method of high-temperature-firing with 100 percent local materials for both the pot and the glaze.
"Most of the raw material found in New Mexico is high in calcium, which is good for low-firing," Cyman said. "People have tried this method here before, but no one has been successful because the high-firing has always melted either the pot or the glaze."
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In the end, Mizokami was successful in creating pots that display the earthy, casual qualities of the Karatsu Method while using New Mexican materials, Cyman said.
Mizokami comes from Kyushu, an island off the southern tip of Japan. His trip to Albuquerque was the product of a 23-year relationship UNM has had with artists from that area, Cyman said.
"The relationship goes back to Dr. Jim Srubek, who was hired by UNM to run the Art Education program back in 1979," Cyman said.
She said that Srubek studied under Sensei Manji Inoue, who is considered "Japan's National Living Treasure of Porcelain." Srubek learned the Arita Method of Porcelain from Inoue and brought it to UNM, Cyman said.
She added that Inoue, who has visited UNM several times, is from the same island as Mizokami.
"Sensei has been a major influence on Mizokami, as well as on his father," she said.
The Arita Method of Porcelain originated in China and has evolved over 1,000 years, on two continents, Cyman said.
UNM is the only university in the United States that teaches the Arita Method, which differs in several ways from western methods of pottery.
The most obvious differences are in physical practice -- the potter's wheel spins clockwise, opposite from western methods, and tools are used in forming and compressing the clay inside the pot, Cyman said.
She added that the fundamental difference lies in that the Arita Method puts an emphasis on the process, rather than the product.
"It's a sequence of steps, a task analysis, that you must learn first," Cyman said. "In the west, they give you a lump of clay and say, 'Please try. Make whatever you want.' No skill is expected of the potter prior to the physical act of creating."
The shift in emphasis being placed on the process rather than the product is attractive to some.
"I have a better chance of improving my skills by following a process," Hakamata said.
Mizokami, whose method is also highly reliant on process, was sent to the United States by funding from the Kyushu Electric Company, which has economic ties to the Japanese government, Cyman said.
She said that in the future, she would like to get funding from UNM to start an exchange program.
"We were very fortunate to have Mizokami visit us," Cyman said.
