Join Portland Japanese Garden in celebrating the opening reception of Earthen Elegance: The Ceramic Art of Bizen, the Garden’s first exhibition of 2025.
This event is only available to those in our Golden Crane Recognition Society. Please RSVP to Melissa Tenorio by January 31st, 2025. You can do so by calling (503) 542-9307, or emailing developmentrsvp@japanesegarden.org.
Reception Details
- Date: Friday, February 7
- Time: 5:30-8:00pm
- Location: Pavilion Gallery at Portland Japanese Garden
- Details: Refreshments and hors d’oeuvres will be served.
About the Exhibition
This February, Portland Japanese Garden is pleased to present Earthen Elegance: The Ceramic Art of Bizen in the Pavilion Gallery. On loan from the Collection of David Sneider and Naomi Pollock, this exhibition celebrates contemporary ceramic art and vessels that preserve a time-honored collaboration of earth, fire, and the artist’s hand. Recognized as one of the Rokkoyō (六古窯) Six Ancient Kilns of Japan, Bizen is a ceramic center that has continued its unique form of pottery for over 900 years. Notable for their rustic, textured, and unglazed forms, the ceramics featured in Earthen Elegance reveal the depths of the Bizen pottery tradition. Today the town of Bizen hosts nearly 300 active kilns with artists continuing to use local materials and an ancient wood-firing process. Featuring work by many of Bizen’s leading potters including Jun Isezaki and Ryuichi Kakurezaki, the exhibition presents both functional vessels and innovative sculptural forms that expand the frontier of Bizen ware.
About the collection:
David Sneider, an international lawyer, and Naomi Pollock, an architect and author, lived and worked in Japan for 30 years. Deeply moved by the artistry and craftsmanship of Japanese pottery, they assembled an extensive collection which spans the full horizon of contemporary Japanese ceramics. Within Bizen ceramics, they marvel at how a particularly large number of innovative artists are applying local materials and time-honored techniques to create work that respects tradition and yet is truly modern.
Pollock has written numerous books on Japanese architecture and design, including her most recent books Japanese Design Since 1945: A Complete Sourcebook and The Japanese House Since 1945. For these collectors, the rough, powerful, and unglazed surface of Bizen pottery resonates with the natural setting of a Japanese garden, especially as the warm, earthen tones on the vessels’ surfaces create an inviting contrast to the colder winter months. Showcasing these unique expressions in clay born from centuries of tradition, Earthen Elegance: The Ceramic Art of Bizen will be on display from February 8, 2025 – June 9, 2025.
