My first trip in 1998 for a month, was to visit major pottery towns, potters, ceramic museums and pottery fairs and temples. In all I visited Tokyo, Mashiko ( home of Hamada) Kasume, Kyoto, Nara, Tokoname, Toki and Bizen - a rare feast. A lasting impression of a country where pottery is made in many places.Where there are whole villages of potters and a long and unbroken cultural, artistic, aesthetic and technical tradition. The Japanese appreciate ceramics, buy them extensively and use them daily for their food and pleasure.

I returned two years later to visit other potters and to work in a pottery- which I did for a month in Ichishi, Mie Prefecture, south east of Osaka; with a Japanes potter of Korean origin. I not only made pots using a kick wheel for the first time but assisted the potter prepare for an exhibition including a seventeen hour continuous wood firing. I also visited Shigaraki for the opening of a new Anagama kiln in Tanikangama, Tanii Hozan's pottery and met a number of local potters with whom I maintain contact. I met warmth and generosity wherever I went.

In 2003 I returned to study Tenmoku glazing with one of Japan's foremost specialists Dr Takai Ryuzou at the Shigaraki Ceramic Research Institute.

n 2004 I returned again to Shigaraki to continue my Oil Spot studies with Dr Takai. This was facilitated by Tanii Hozan who accepted me as a member of his pottery and in whose small apartment in the pottery I had the pleasure of staying. During the two months I prepared some 150 recipes and 12 firings in the Institute. ( gallery item 7 was one of the last bowls with Oil Spot I made there)

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