THE WAY of CLAY 
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Japan has four seasons, and a botanical garden in spring is beautiful. My mother and my grandmother love flowers, and they went to the gardens almost every year. I was never especially interested in flowers myself. I never felt like going to a garden on my own. In Kyoto, the cherry blossoms were everywhere in spring, even without visiting a garden. Maybe that was enough for me, and I never noticed. But the tulip garden in Amsterdam moved me. I went in the spring, and it happe

There is a smell the Big Island has after rain. If you've never experienced it, it's hard to describe — earthy and mineral and just slightly sulfuric, rising from the ground itself. I lived with that smell for three years, and it worked its way into everything I made. I moved to Leilani Estates in Hilo in my early years as a potter. I already had a practice — I had grown up in Kyoto, where silence and craftsmanship are practically in the air — but Hawaii was where I showed up

Every October, something shifts in the studio. The glazes I reach for change. The shapes on the wheel get a little more playful. And instead of the quiet calm of my usual matcha bowls and mugs, I find myself carving tiny pumpkin faces into soft clay at two in the morning, genuinely happy about it. This year I'm making jack-o'-lantern candle holders and ghost candle holders — a whole little Halloween crew — for the Los Angeles art fair on October 10th. They're small, handmade,