Japanese/American ceramicist Toshiko Takaezu died last week aged 89. Renowned for her closed pots and torpedo-like cylinders, her works ranged in scale from minute orbs to six-foot monoliths. The ceramicist actively promoted the medium as an art form, and embraced the notion that the objects she created were to be seen rather than used. As such, her works can be viewed as three dimensional canvases. They are often enlivened by eruptions of colour and brush-strokes that recall the paintings of Takaezu’s contemporaries including Jackson Pollock and Franz Kline.
But some of the most beautiful elements of Takaezu’s work are invisible. She left little pieces of clay inside her closed forms so that they emit gentle sounds when moved. Other works contain secret phrases written within their interiors. To discover these messages, the works would need to be broken. Which is not to say that Takaezu was overly precious about her ceramics. The Zen Buddhist saw her art and life as seamlessly intertwined, even cooking claypot chicken alongside the stoneware baking in her kilns.