Originally a student of sculpture at a Tokyo art school, Takahiro Manome embarked on a journey that led him to ceramics, and an atelier on a Kasama mountainside. His work today contains a quiet resolve and a dedication to texture and form.

Using a blend of dark local clay, he generates light shades with rich coatings in slip, and prizes the interaction in materials. Fingermarks, brushwork and a contrast in surface decoration he hopes are all aspects that add to the natural and human scenery of his work. Manome’s forms are sometimes thrown, and sometimes made with moulds. They are often finished in the kohiki style of slip and translucent glaze. Somehow Manome too, always manages to fire his gentle personality into his work, and so creates items which are a pleasure to have and to use.