Nestled in the mountains near Hita city is a little pottery hamlet called Onta Sarayama. This is where Onta Yaki is made. Onta potters learned the skills from Koishiwara potters on the other side of the mountain from what is now Fukuoka Prefecture. It began as a single kiln in the middle of the Edo period. It was relatively unknown until the 1920's when Yanagi Soetsu visited at the beginning of the Mingei movement. It is now one of the great places to see Japanese folk pottery.
There are ten families that work the kilns there. The main family names in Onta are Sakamoto, Kuroki and Yanase. All the work is done without modern machinery. Each father hands down his skills to his son. Each kiln is allowed only two wheels. This enables future generations to have enough clay to continue on making Onta pottery. I enjoyed my visit to Onta Sarayama, enjoying the simple, natural ways that still remain.
Onta potters mark their work with 小鹿田 (Onta).
Helpful answers to questions. It is in Japanese but you can get a general idea using Google translate.
List of Onta potters
Here is another that looks like it may be from one of the Sakamoto kilns.
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| I think this was probably made by Sakamoto Shigeki considering age, style and Onta mark used |
This is a large plate! No marks. The Yubi gaki/finger wipe and uchihakeme/brush techniques were used here.
No maker marks
After some research I believe this is probably the work of Sakamoto Shigeki. The hiragana mark, design and foot are very reminiscent to his works. If indeed this is his work, he was the Onta potter who hosted the visit of Bernard Leach and Yanagi Soetsu which rocketed Onta into the exciting world of Mingei!
Several examples from kilns/shops we visited
This is the uchihakeme technique
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| Photo from a visit to the Fukuoka Art Museum |
