The strength of a pot

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“Well, for one thing, the impact that I got from women potters, the strength that you could feel, the strength that is in the pot, made me feel that I really like this…

and they didn’t make to have it in the galleries and the museum, they make because they can use it. And so, that was really very big impact that I had.

Plus, when I was still going to school, I happened to have anthology of Japanese poetry that was translated. I read this, and I was so impressed by one woman potter [Otagaki Rengetsu], but she was a nun, and her background was - later on I found out - because she was making pots and then she used to write poems, tanka and haiku on the pots….”1

On June 16th 2003, Gerry Williams interviewed ceramic artist Toshiko Takaezu for the Archives of American Art. The quote above is the answer she gave when asked whether there had been any special moments that pushed her to pursue ceramics.

Toshiko Takaezu’s work can certainly not be contained in one post. Her work is expansive, it takes space - literal space due to the sheer size of her pots. She described the act of making them as an adrenaline rush:

“I’m up there on a scaffold and the wheel is moving, there’s an almost psychic feeling that I’m going to be pulled down into the pot. I have to have someone who is very quiet to keep the wheel moving gently and not talk. There’s the danger that I might go in. It’s a fantastic sensation. My heart pounds. It’s strange even to talk about it. There I am on top and when I look down it’s as if the whole universe is right inside the pot.”2

Space and strength often go hand in hand, although meaningful pots do not always need to be big. Takaezu was also interested in the space we do not see. In 1993, when interviewed for the Studio Potter’s feature on New Jersey’s ceramic artists, Takaezu recounted that she had impressed the governor of Okinawa in 1975, who was visiting her show in Hawaii, with talking about the dark space inside her pots:

“It’s the space inside the closed forms that’s important to me, and not knowing about the dark volume that cannot be entered.”3

Maybe inspired by Rengetsu, she used to write inside her closed-forms, words that nobody could ever read. She stopped doing so, maybe because the act inspired too much curiosity. “I didn’t want people to read it anyway”, she said.

Curious and experimental, Takaezu pushed the boundaries of what could be done with kilns, clay and glazes. She saw her pots as canvases and combined different glazes, applying them instinctually. She danced around the pots when glazing (“I like the idea of dancing around the piece when I put the glaze on. You get the big brush and you walk around”)4 and often did not document what she had used. While this proved challenging at times, she also told her own students not to take notes. Her apprentices - who described her as a rather strict and somewhat mercurial instructor - were encouraged to find their own voice and never to copy. Copying her work was forbidden.

I come back to her initial quote. The idea of understanding a piece’s strength is what fascinates me. It is a rather difficult exercise. Is strength in the way in which the form opens itself in front of us? Is it about technique or skill? Is it something that lives on the pot, like Rengetsu’s poetry? I struggle with this quote. I struggle with defining exactly what to call the evasive feeling I have when I look at pots made by artists I admire.

Takaezu made the work she felt like making. While she was certainly successful and her pots were featured in illustrious galleries, she created for herself.

Is this what she meant by strength? The resolve to keep working, keeping at it, like Georgia O’Keeffe said, to persevere in the face of challenges and rejection. To make deeply personal work within patriarchal and oppressive structures. To teach others on your own terms, as Maria Martinez did, to lift others up and cultivate the craft while your work is being erased and destroyed - like what happened to Augusta Savage.

Takaezu’s work has been deeply influential in my own practice. Her pots are landscapes, voluminous shapes filled with spirit. The closed form - with only a small hole to allow air to escape - captures the moment in time, her dancing around the pot. A snapshot of the artist being in the present while the pot was being born.

Even though I have trouble understanding my own feelings, I can clearly sense the strength in her pots and in those of all the women whose work I am fortunate to be getting to know through my weekly readings.

Toshiko Takaezu (1922-2011), born in Hawaii from a Japanese family, was a celebrated ceramic artist with a distinctive body of work, which included big ceramic closed-forms, sculptures, paintings and fiber weavings.

Sources

Glenn Adamson, “Toshiko Takaezu: Worlds Within”, Yale University Press, 2024

Peter Held, “The Art of Toshiko Takaezu: In the Language of Silence”, The University of North Carolina Press, 2011

Kealey Boyd, Artists Remember the Transformative Teachings of Toshiko Takaezu, Hyperallergic, 2024, https://hyperallergic.com/artists-remember-the-transformative-teachings-of-toshiko-takaezu/ accessed March 10th 2026

Artforum, AN INTERVIEW WITH TOSHIKO TAKAEZU, 2011, https://www.artforum.com/video/an-interview-with-toshiko-takaezu-163482/ accessed March 10th 2026

Smithsonian, Archives of American Art, Oral history interview with Toshiko Takaezu, 2003 June 16, https://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/interviews/oral-history-interview-toshiko-takaezu-12097 accessed March 10th 2026

Studio Potter, Vol. 21 No. 2, June 1993