空間と文脈のあいだに、その場所だけの物語を描く。
Stories shaped by place, between space and context.
Stories shaped by place, between space and context.
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工遊録 -Conversations-
木村達哉 （陶芸家） / Tatsuya Kimura (ceramic artist)
1 - 陶芸に向かない土 / Soil never meant for pottery
中村：
たしか大学の授業のとき、学校の敷地の土を勝手に掘ったんだよね。キムタツ（※中村は木村の事をそう呼んでいる）が何で土を掘り始めたか、みたいな話から聞いてもいい？
木村：
土を掘り始めたのは、大学の一番最初の授業で、湯呑みを作る課題があって。湯呑みだったかな、それはちょっと忘れたんだけど。
使う粘土が学校で決まっていて、粘土もそうだし、釉薬も一種類、その次に使う顔料も一種類で。最初はやっていて楽しかったけど、課題をやる前に、去年同じ課題をやった先輩のものを見せてもらっていたから、「こうしたら、こうなるよね」という感じで、そのとおりのものができた。何かもう、面白くなくなって。
それで、大学がたまたま山の中にあったから、ちょっとそこら辺の土を掘ってみたら、いろんな土が出てきたし、課題で使っている土とは色も違うし、粒子も粗いから、「こっちの方がちょっと面白そう」と思って。テストで窯に入れて焼いてみたら、すごく面白い色になったり、いろいろ幅があったり、溶けたり、ちょっと膨らんでいたりとか。「こっちだな」みたいな。
ずっと予備校のときから、美大に行こうと思ったときから、周りに比べて、あんまり作りたいものがなかったんだよね。「これを作りたいんだ」というものがなくて。でも、その瞬間に何か、「自分はこれだな」というか。作りたいものは分からないけど、「この素材だ」みたいな。それが、土を掘り始めたきっかけかな。
中村：
湯呑みの造形ではなく、テクスチャーとか色とか、粒度の大きさに興味を持ったのがきっかけで今のキムタツがいるんだね。
木村：
うん。
中村：
キムタツは、大学にいる時点ですでにその道を選んでいたのが面白いね。実際に陶芸をやる上では、土を自分で掘るということが、どういうところで生きてくる？
木村：
その現場を、自分の目でちゃんと確かめたかった、みたいな。何か、あるものを渡されるんじゃなくて、自分で「これをどう知っていこうかな」と考えるのが、結構好きなのかもしれない。
その大学の土を掘った次の年ぐらいに、大学の敷地内に、たまたま鎌倉時代の山茶碗を焼いていた窯跡があって。大学一年生のときにも見ているんだけど、そのときはあんまり感動しなくて。「窯跡か」みたいな。
でも、土を掘り始めてから、「ここに昔、焼いていた人がいたんだな」みたいに感じるようになった。この人たちも、たぶんその土地の土を使ってやっていて、しかも窯も斜面に掘ってあって。何か、すごく自然と向き合っている感じが印象に残って。「昔の人も掘ってたんだ」みたいな。
そこで気づいて、昔はどういうものを作っていたんだろうと思って見ていたら、雑器だから、きらびやかでもないし、料理を盛ったりするのに使いやすそうという感じでもない。荒くて、すごくザラザラしているけど、ちゃんと器の形をしている。量産だから、余計な手間を入れないというか、もうパッパッと作っていく。その、削ぎ落とされたがゆえに生まれた器というのが、すごく人為的な、人の作為と、土という素材の究極にシンプルな着地点というか。
自分は「これだ」と思って。
昔の山茶碗は荒くて使いにくいけど、今の素材と今の焼き方で、もっと食卓だったり、料理屋さんで使えるようにする。それが、今ハマって作っている理由というか、そこにもつながっていく。
中村：
いわゆる陶芸の歴史を、自ら掘るという行為で追体験している。原初的だけれど、その素直なアプローチが、山茶碗の「分かる人には分かる」表現に導いていった。焼き物で有名な産地は、いい土が出てくるの？それとも集まってくるの？
木村：
焼き物の産地として有名なところは、やっぱり土がいい。海が近く船で輸送されて土が集まったりとか、地理的な条件もあるけど、製品にできる土がそこにあったことが大きいと思う。
中村：
いい土が単純にたくさんあるだけなら、いつかなくなったらその文化も終わっちゃうのかな、と想像してしまうけど、、。
木村：
基本的には、土を運ぶのは変わらないので、土があるところで物を作る。
確かに枯渇して衰退するところもあっただろうけど、何百年と残っているところが割と多いかな。その中でも、質のいい層がなくなって、品質が落ちたりすることは実際にある。いい土があっても産業としての量を確保できなくて、産地として発達しなかった地域もあると思います。
そもそもいい土ってなんだという話で、土の質可塑性がないとか、耐火度が足りないとか、そもそも石ばかりの山だったりする地域では陶芸に向く粘土が大量に採れなかった。
僕は、そういう焼き物の歴史からこぼれてしまったけれど、見方を変えると魅力のある土を、もっと取り上げていきたい。
中村：
「焼き物に向かない」とされてきた土。
木村：
そう。陶芸となると、使える土はだいぶ絞られる。だからこそ、産地が各県に一つか二つ、点々としかないことにもつながってくるんだけど。
一万年以上の長い焼き物の歴史の中で、見る土としては魅力があるけど、焼き物にはならないからという理由で、日の目を浴びてこなかった土もある。
粘りがなかったり、ジャリジャリしていたり。食器には向かないという理由で、ずっと使われてこなかった。
中村：
産業的でなければ、焼き物という形で見てもらう機会を作ることはできる？
木村：
自分は、そういう土に出会う度に、焼き物としてどう工夫できるのかといろいろ実験しています。幸介がそれを左官にしてみようと話してくれたのは、自分にとって新しい発見だった。
中村：
左官として建築の壁にすれば、陶芸よりも大きなスケールで形にできる。さらには土の色なんかも焼かないからそのまま仕上としてデザインに活かすことができる。陶芸家にしてみると、土が焼かれずに使われるのは物足りないかもしれないけど、キムタツが保管してきた日の目を浴びない土のストックを見たときに、建築素材として扱う可能性はあると思った。そこで陶芸家と左官職人のコラボレーションという形を思いついたのが、このスツール（https://kosukenakamura.jp/sigiriya-stool）の始まり。
実際の内装プロジェクトで高さ4メートルの左官壁として使われる予定だったんだけれど、その企画自体がなくなってしまって。じゃあ、僕の家に家具としてほしいかも、新しいプロジェクトとして再出発だ！と。（笑）大橋さんにも小さい家具の仕事になってしまってすみませんと改めてお願いしてみたら、それはそれで面白いじゃんと前向きに取り組んでくれることになりました。
木村：
この間も、隙間時間に三重県桑名市ですごい地層を見つけて。白からオレンジまで色があって、土質も砂っぽくて面白かった。一旦これを（スツールの左官材料として）大橋さんに送りたいなと思ったんです。場所の歴史としては、ここから少し離れたところに萬古焼の産地があって、そこよりもかなり山寄りのエリア。この土が風化して堆積したものが、萬古焼に使われた土なのかな、と推測しています。つまり、この土地自体は産地にはなっていない。
大きな塊がボロボロ落ちていて、量も割と確保できそうというのもいいかなと思いました。
中村：
地層の中でも、焼き物に使えそうな層と、使えなさそうな層が混ざって見えている？
木村：
そう。これだけ地層が出ていて、おそらく焼き物に向いているだろう層は、上の方の白っぽいところだけ。
焼き物に使える層が少ないから産地にならなかった、とも言えるような、いい資料だと思う。焼き物に向く、向かないというのも層ごとに見やすくて、大きな地層はみんな並んでで見るのにも分かりやすい。そういう意味でも面白いかなと。
中村：
産地になった理由だけではなく、産地にならなかった理由まで、地層から見えてくるのか、、。
木村：
何が使えるかだけじゃなくて、なぜここでは産業にならなかったのかも、一緒に見えてくる。
土を知ると、それこそ土壁とかの左官に対しても、もっと見え方が変わってくるというか。そういうきっかけにもなればいいし、自分も、ほかの分野でも、素材そのものやどういう技法で成り立っているかというところを、もっと見ていきたいですね。
-English-
Nakamura:
When you were at university, you dug up soil from the campus without permission, right? Could we start with why you began digging for soil in the first place, Kimutatsu ( Nakamura’s nickname for Kimura.)?
Kimura:
It started with one of the very first assignments I was given at university. We had to make a teacup. I think it was a teacup—I do not remember exactly.
The school had already decided which soil we were allowed to use. There was one type of soil, one glaze, and then one pigment for the next stage. It was fun at first, but before starting the assignment, I had already seen what the students in the year above had made. So I knew, “If I do this, it will turn out like that,” and that was exactly what happened. It just stopped being interesting.
The university happened to be in the mountains, so I tried digging up some soil nearby. I found all kinds of soil. The colors were different from the soil we used in class, and the particles were much coarser. I thought, “This looks more interesting.” I put some into the kiln as a test, and it produced all kinds of unexpected results. Some turned unusual colors, some melted, and some bloated slightly. I remember thinking, “This is it.”
Even when I was at art preparatory school and had decided to go to art university, I did not really have anything in particular that I wanted to make, unlike the people around me. I never had that strong feeling of, “This is what I want to create.”
But at that moment, I felt something like, “This is what I have been looking for.” I still did not know what I wanted to make, but I knew, “This is the material.” That was what led me to start digging for soil.
Nakamura:
So rather than the form of the teacup itself, it was the texture, the color, and the size of the particles that caught your attention—and that became the starting point for who you are today.
Kimura:
Yeah.
Nakamura:
What I find interesting is that you had already chosen this path while you were still at university. In terms of actually making pottery, how does digging the soil yourself affect your work?
Kimura:
I think I wanted to see the place it came from with my own eyes.
Rather than being handed something that had already been prepared, I seem to enjoy asking myself, “How can I begin to understand this material?”
About a year after I first dug up soil at the university, I learned that there was an old kiln site on the campus where yama-jawan had been fired during the Kamakura period. I had already seen it in my first year, but at the time I was not particularly moved. It was just, “Oh, a kiln site.”
But after I started digging for soil myself, I began to see it differently. I thought, “Someone was making pottery here a long time ago.”
They were probably using soil from that same land, and the kiln itself had been dug into the slope. The sense that they were directly confronting nature left a strong impression on me. It was like realizing, “People in the past were digging too.”
That made me wonder what they had been making. Yama-jawan were everyday, utilitarian vessels, so they were neither decorative nor glamorous. They did not even look especially practical for serving food. They were rough and extremely grainy, but they still clearly had the form of vessels.
Because they were produced in large quantities, no unnecessary effort was put into them. They were made quickly, one after another. Precisely because so much had been stripped away, they reached an extremely simple meeting point between human intention and soil as a material.
I thought, “This is it.”
Old yama-jawan are rough and not especially easy to use, but I want to reinterpret them through contemporary materials and firing methods so that they can be used at the dining table or in restaurants today. That is connected to why I am so absorbed in making them now.
Nakamura:
In a sense, by digging the soil yourself, you are retracing the history of pottery through your own actions. It is an elemental and direct approach, but that honesty seems to have led you toward the kind of expression found in yama-jawan—something that reveals itself only to those who know what to look for.
Do famous pottery regions simply happen to have good soil, or does good soil also accumulate there because of the geography?
Kimura:
Well-known pottery regions generally do have good soil.
Geographical conditions also played a role. Being close to the sea, for example, made transportation by boat easier. But the most important factor was that those places already had soil that could be made into consistent, usable products.
Nakamura:
When I think of it simply as a place having a large quantity of good soil, I start to wonder whether the culture would disappear once that soil ran out.
Kimura:
Transporting soil is difficult, so traditionally people made things close to where the soil was found.
Some places probably did decline after their resources were depleted, but quite a few pottery regions have continued for hundreds of years. Even within those regions, though, the highest-quality layers can disappear, and the quality of the material can gradually decline.
There were also regions that had good soil but could not secure enough of it to sustain an industry, so they never developed into pottery-producing centers.
It also raises the question of what “good soil” actually means. Some soils lack plasticity, some cannot withstand high firing temperatures, and some mountains consist mostly of stone, making it impossible to obtain enough soil suitable for pottery.
I want to draw attention to soils that may have fallen outside the history of pottery but become compelling when viewed from a different perspective.
Nakamura:
Soil that has historically been considered “unsuitable for pottery.”
Kimura:
Exactly. Once you limit the discussion to pottery, the range of usable soils becomes quite narrow. That is also why each prefecture may have only one or two pottery-producing regions scattered across it.
Over the more than 10,000-year history of pottery, there have probably been soils that were visually compelling but never brought into the light because they could not be made into pottery.
They might lack stickiness or contain too much grit. They were left unused because they were considered unsuitable for tableware.
Nakamura:
Even if they are not viable on an industrial scale, could you still create opportunities for people to encounter them through pottery?
Kimura:
Whenever I encounter soil like that, I experiment with ways it might still be used in pottery.
When you suggested trying it as plaster, that opened up a completely new possibility for me.
Nakamura:
By using it as architectural plaster, the soil can take shape on a much larger scale than it can in pottery. And because it is not fired, its original color can be used directly as an architectural finish.
For a ceramic artist, using soil without firing it might feel slightly incomplete. But when I saw the collection of soils you had been keeping—materials that had never had an opportunity to be seen—I felt that they had real potential as architectural materials.
That was the beginning of the stool project: （https://kosukenakamura.jp/sigiriya-stool） the idea of bringing a ceramic artist and a plaster artisan together.
We had originally planned to use the material for a four-meter-high plaster wall in an interior project, but the project itself was cancelled. So I thought, “Maybe I would like to have it as a piece of furniture in my own home. Let’s give it a new start as a separate project. (laughs) ”
I went back to Ohashi and apologized that it had turned into such a small furniture project, but he said, “That could be interesting in its own way,” and agreed to take it on.
Kimura:
Recently, while I had a little free time, I came across a remarkable exposed soil formation in Kuwana, Mie Prefecture.
The colors ranged from white to orange, and the soil had an interesting, sandy quality. I thought I would send some to Ohashi to use as the plaster material for the stool.
In terms of the area’s history, the Banko ware region is located a short distance away, while this site lies much farther into the mountains.
My guess is that soil weathered out of this formation, accumulated farther downhill, and eventually became part of the material used for Banko ware. In other words, this particular site itself never developed into a pottery-producing region.
Large chunks were already crumbling away, and it looked as though we could secure a reasonable quantity, which was another positive aspect.
Nakamura:
Within the exposed strata, can you see layers that appear suitable for pottery mixed with layers that do not?
Kimura:
Yes. The strata are clearly exposed, but the only layer that is probably suitable for pottery is the whitish section near the top.
It is a useful example because you can see that the area may never have developed into a pottery region precisely because there was so little usable soil.
The different layers make it easy to see which soil might be suitable for pottery and which might not. The exposed formation is also large enough for a group of people to stand in front of it and examine the layers together, so it is visually easy to understand. That is another reason I find it interesting.
Nakamura:
So the strata reveal not only why certain places became pottery regions, but also why others did not.
Kimura:
Exactly. You can see not only what was usable, but also why an industry never developed there.
When you begin to understand soil, the way you look at plaster and earthen walls also starts to change.
I hope this can become a way for people to begin seeing soil differently. I also want to keep looking beyond pottery—at materials themselves, and at the techniques through which different things are made.