Brutus Magazine
six page article in the July 2005
special pottery issue of Brutus magazine

click here for photo enlargements

(translation)
The pottery that I like
Do you know Shoji Hamada?
by Hitoshi Okamoto

Adam Silverman is a potter living in Los Angeles. Although he may not yet be known as a potter in Japan, more might recognize him when I mention that he is one of the original founders of the brand X-LARGE in the 90s, along with Mike D. from Beastie Boys and his art school peer Eli Bonerz.

“When I first started college, I was a pottery major for one year, and then became an architecture major. After school, I became an architect and then started making clothes. When I first started X-LARGE, I designed a lot of stores, and it was a really exciting experience, building it for the first few years. But as X-LARGE grew, and although it kept being a cool company, we had partners, investors, lots of employees, factories and lots of customers so it basically became about running a company. And I started to feel like I need something else in my life! Pottery became that something else.

So now making pottery, I can close the door and just be by myself. That’s the way I want to do it, working alone in the studio, just by myself. So pottery is in a way a response to my X-LARGE phase.“

Adam’s studio “Atwater Pottery” is located in the Atwater Village area of Los Angeles. The most impressive thing about his studio is that all the processes take place in this one room. There is a large table in the middle of the studio, and there lay some pots that have been glazed, or finished flower vases just waiting to be shipped. Two electrical wheels sit on the right side of the table and shelves on the left store the glaze buckets and packaging materials. Three electrical kilns are placed at the back left corner of the room. Adam literary goes around the table working on each procedure; throw the clay on the wheels, dry them on the caster trays, glaze them, put them in the kilns, package them, ship them, and write invoices. This casual set up, complimented by his hairstyle and tattoos on his arms, pleasantly deceive your ordinary image of a “potter.”

“Pottery is great. It’s the simplest thing you can do, to make a pot out of a clay, but it is also a thing that I feel I know nothing of. I could spend the next 50 years studying and I think there’d still be more to learn. In the beginning I was thinking of pottery more as a hobby, but it started to become something more satisfying. And then I realized that what I was making in pottery was better than any other things that I was making, in architecture or with clothes. So that’s the place where I thought I could have my voice and where my aesthetics were coming out the best. In LA, there’s no kind of pottery community unfortunately. I have one friend who’s a potter but she lives in Berkeley. It’s lonely in a way, I would love to be in a place where a lot of people are doing it, and I could probably learn from them. Because now, I learn everything through books and traveling.  

What would he feel and think, when we bring this thoroughly independent, urban potter to Mashiko Sanko-kan?

We brought Adam Silverman out to Mashiko, where the late Shoji Hamada lived and worked. Mashiko Sanko-kan (reference museum) preserves Hamada’s studio and kilns exactly as he used them, and his craftwork and pottery collection from all over the world, which are all on view for the visitors. Hamada thoroughly studied these items and brought the inspiration into his work. If something inspires Adam in the same way, something exciting might happen…

---What made you decide to become a potter?

AS: The first time I threw pottery was in high school art class. It was the most basic throwing, just sort of an introduction. It just seemed fun and… I wasn’t very good at it then. It didn’t really mean anything to me until much later. I always did it because I liked it, not because like I had some potter that I really liked. It didn't really click in a way until I wan an architect. I realized that pottery started to become more and more satisfying for me. It felt right to me. So in the summer of 2002, I went for 6 weeks intensive program to Alfred University in upstate New York, the most famous pottery school in America. And I went with the idea to decide after that course whether I was going to become professional potter or not. During the 6 weeks, I learned a lot. The faculty was very good. And the response I got there was also very good. So I went back to Los Angeles and started setting up a studio. In the spring of 2003, I got up the courage to go show my work to people other than my friends. And that lead to the first show that I had in May of 2003. So it’s been 2 full years since then. Yeah it’s only been 2 years.  

--- Were you interested in Shoji Hamada before you had a chance to visit Mashiko?

AS: Of course! When I first decided to take pottery more seriously, I went to the bookstore and the library and read and studied about it a lot. I read about Bernard Leech and Shoji Hamada and got all the books I could about them, to learn about their whole MINGEI thing.  

---What are your thoughts on MINGEI movement?

AS: Of course I respect it. But to be honest, the things that I understand about MINGEI, are hard to relate to as an American living in Los Angeles in 2005. Its ideals and what it was hoping to accomplish and to celebrate are totally admirable, but in a way they basically lost the war that they were fighting. I think, from what I understand, what they were celebrating more was the anonymous crafts person, the anonymous maker of the stuff rather than who makes it. But neither one of them was an anonymous maker. They became super stars. That’s sort of the unfortunate irony of it.  

---How did you feel visiting the workshop and kilns that were used by Shoji Hamada?

AS: It was amazing to see the old workshop and the worn wood benches that Hamada-san sat on when he threw pots. The physical beauty of the buildings and gardens, the grounds were more than I had expected. The heaviness of those roofs combined with the openness of the sliding exterior walls was very interesting and made a strong impression on me.

---How did Hamada’s teacup feel in your hands?

AS: There is heaviness to most functional, country pottery, and his pots are consistent with that. The proportions were very good, his teacup felt good in my hands, good forms and balance.

---What did you think when you heard that Hamada family was using the tableware that they made themselves for their own dining?

AS: I think that every potter should use their own work. It is a very good way to get close to the things that you make. To hold and drink from and eat from pottery is very intimate, and when you made it, then it is more intimate and helps you understand the pots better. Then you can make changes to the next pots in response.

---What were your impressions on the collections you saw at Mashiko Sanko-kan (reference museum)? Hamada brought them back from all over the world as a proof of his own “defeat”.

AS: Well the things that we all collect in our travels are always very personal. I liked a lot of the craft pieces, the pots in particular. The old wooden chairs were not my taste, but I can see how they were very interesting to him.

---After visiting Mashiko, what are your thoughts after coming back to your own environment in LA?

AS: I have a very different life here, and a very different way of working. I live in a huge city and work right in the middle of it. I have a small studio, with one room where I have to do everything, throw pots, glaze them, fire the kilns, do the sales and packing the boxes, etc. So I have much more limited options than any country potter, in any country. I do hope that I will have the opportunity to be a country potter some day. Maybe when I am old and gray. We will see.

---What are you planning to make with the “persimmon glaze” that you got from Hamada kilns (Adam took home this Mashiko specialty glaze called “persimmon glaze/Kaki-gusuri,” given from Tomoo Hamada, the grand son of Hamada and the current Hamada Kiln potter) Hamada Kiln is located next to Mashiko Sanko-kan) , and Mashiko clays?

AS: I think I will probably make a couple of vases in my typical shapes, to see if the combination makes any unusual results, something different than either of us usually make. I do not want to try and make something like a Mashiko tea bowl that tries to compete with something that hundreds of potters have been making for hundreds of years. I will send you pictures when I have made something (only if it is good of course).