Koji Takagi　高木浩二

It is about a 20 min drive from Yotsukaido Station in Chiba. When you proceed into the greenery field, there suddenly stands a one-story traditional Japanese house. It is as if the time flows differently in that quiet area with only the sounds of birds and bugs. One of the rooms in this house is Takagi’s atelier. While the jazz music plays in the background, the room is filled with his works and tools. The room where he can focus on his production seems so essential just like a boy’s secret base. He originally dreamed to be a painter, but because he found himself feeling his limit as an artist, he majored art in the philosophy faculty at Keio University. He tried to pursue being a curator, yet he started questioning about only wielding theories and decided to pursue in becoming a creator himself. With the influence of a potter he’s known since high school, he decided to pursue a career as a potter.

Born in Tokyo, a city boy frequently visited Nara and Kyoto since high school. Around that time, he had a fateful encounter. It was a potter Shiro Tsujimura who was only beginning his career then and was selling bowls on the street of Nara. Takagi somehow was very drawn to him and followed him to Tsujimura’s home where he ended up spending a month. Raised in the city, for Takagi, Tsujimura who lived in a self-built house in an isolated place in the mountain where no electricity and water are provided and who self-taught pottery was all spine-tingling including the way of his living, his language and behavior. Even after going to university, he kept in touch with Tsujimura and visited him for long holidays with no purpose. After graduating university, Takagi asked to be his apprentice, but Tsujimura declined the request because his policy was not to take an apprentice. So he asked to live with him as a lodger, not as an apprentice. There he learned the basics of pottery and studied under Shozo Furukawa. After becoming an independent, he keeps producing in Chiba.

The clay applied ware are Takagi’s signature work. It uses a method of applying different colors of soil with a sponge which creates an intriguing impression like a rock’s surface. Using multi-color soil is a commonly used method; however, Takagi does not use artificial colors and only uses natural soil to apply color. The motto is to make the food look more delicious when it is placed in the bowl. Just as he says, Takagi’s work never stands out more than the food itself and enhances it. At the same time, you can feel nature-inspired texture and the modern presence of simpleness that the bowl itself has a remarkable presence with a great impression. This is why his bowls are used in many famous hotels around the world.