Essay by Victoria Richmond, Class of 2011

Toshiko Takaezu was born of Japanese immigrants on the Hawaiian Islands in 1922. She studied ceramics, design and weaving at the University of Hawaii, after which she enrolled in Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan. Takaezu later remarked of her artistic education, "Hawaii was where I learned technique; Cranbrook was where I found myself" (Sewell). At Cranbrook, Takaezu was introduced to one of her most influential mentors, the Flemish ceramicist Maja Grotell. Grotell was known for her large, sturdy forms created on the wheel. After graduating, Takaezu adopted many similarities to Grotell. She began her career making modest functional vessels, and gradually evolved into closed forms of the 1960s, which led to the development of Moon pots (large spheres) and increasingly bigger closed forms, sometimes as large as standing 6ft tall. While her forms change in shape and size they carry her signature of painterliness in the poured and brushed glazes.

Takaezu's major formal development of the late 1950s involved closing form, creating an uninterrupted surface to develop her glazing and color palette (Koplos). Her color does not appear as a solid, but as an atmosphere. It suggests landscape and evokes space. She uses both layering and a dispersal of misty color to create illusionary dimension. The glazing technique is a full body experience and evokes the action painters of her childhood. She combines movements of controlled dripping, splashing, pouring, dipping, and brushwork to create representational form (Strickland). In the 1960s, she also began inserting into the closed forms a paper-wrapped wad of clay that after firing would make a subtle sound when the pot was moved. This noise incorporates the sense of hearing, while the visual display involves the sense of sight.

Takaezu's Spring Rain (ca. 1992) is one of her moon forms. She developed this form in the late 1960s. These are constructed pieces made of joined hemispheres. The lower hemisphere evokes water, while the upper hemisphere appears to depict land and air. Takaezu encompasses the elegiac qualities of nature in her forms. Her color range is subdued and includes splotches and drips. This specific moon form suggests a calm landscape seemingly disturbed by the arching drops of spring rain. Takaezu stated her goal for such work, "To me an artist is someone quite special. You are not an artist simply because you paint or sculpt or make pots that cannot be used. An artist is a poet in his or her own medium. And when an artist produces a good piece, that work has mystery, an unsaid quality; it is alive" (Sewell).