Yokei Mizuno
Yokei Mizuno (水野陽景, b. 1956) is a second-generation Tokoname kyusu maker celebrated for teapots of remarkable thinness and for his command of demanding unglazed firings such as nanban.
About Yokei Mizuno (Tokoname, Japan)
Yokei Mizuno (水野陽景, b. 1956) learned the craft from his father, the Tokoname potter Mizuno Keikan, and has worked under his own name and kiln, Yokei-gama, since 1978. A selected exhibitor at Japan's national and Tokai Traditional Crafts exhibitions and an associate member of the Japan Kogei Association, he makes kyusu of unusual thinness whose quiet, unglazed surfaces reward close looking.
His father, who made mostly everyday ware, urged him from the start to “make good teapots,” and that pursuit of the fine, artistic kyusu has shaped Yokei's whole career.
“A teapot must of course be easy to use, but it must also delight the eye and stand up to close appreciation. I care most about the overall balance.”
Yokei Mizuno
Short Bio
- Born 1956 in Tokoname (常滑), Aichi — the heart of Japan's teapot tradition.
- Second-generation kyusu maker: son of the Tokoname potter Mizuno Keikan (水野景観). From boyhood he helped in the family workshop, packing charcoal into carved teapots and polishing finished pots.
- Studied ceramics at Tokoname High School (1974) and advanced glaze studies at Seto Ceramics High School (1976) before apprenticing under his father.
- Established his own name and kiln, Yokei-gama (陽景窯), in 1978; he and his father then worked side by side for some twenty years.
- Associate member of the Japan Kogei Association (Tokai Branch); repeatedly selected for the national Japan Traditional Crafts Exhibition and the Tokai Traditional Crafts Exhibition.
- Awarded the Mie Prefectural Board of Education Award at the 46th Tokai Traditional Crafts Exhibition (2015).
- One of the few Tokoname potters who command the demanding nanban (南蛮) firing, alongside yakishime, mogake, hidasuki and kiln-change (yohen).
Mizuno works in Tokoname shudei (朱泥) red clay and in his own blend of local mountain and rice-field earth with Shigaraki clay, all fired unglazed. He shapes each thin, light body with his right hand alone, without supporting it from inside with the left, and fires it three times. Alongside the demanding nanban (南蛮) firing for which he is known, he works in yakishime, mogake, hidasuki, nashiji and kiln-change yohen, in both rounded and flat hira-kyusu forms.
His unglazed surfaces carry the marks of fire and hand, and they are made to deepen with years of use — a teapot meant not merely to be looked at, but lived with and slowly worn in by tea.
