"Real movement is forward.”

— From a series of insight gathered during conversations with crafts related people around Japan.

“I have heard people saying, if you don’t innovate, you’re out of business. Here, we do ceramic since 7 generations. Around here, there are only 2 workshops like ours left. What have we changed since 7 generations ? Nothing. Well, yes, we now use electric potters’ wheels, we have switch to gaz kiln, the recipe of our clay has evolved slowly. Things like that. Some of the other workshops who ended up closing down did so because of new regulations on fumes in urban area. But for the rest of them, the main reason for them to close down was children not willing to continue the family business. They are not to blame, running such a place is not an easy task and the city is full of opportunities. But here, I am keen on not changing. People who speak about changing things in the way they work, or in their life even, they will change maybe every year. They change something, and change something again, and again, and little by little, as they think of themselves as moving forward, they don’t see that they are actually going round. And after 10 years, they are back where they started. Some would call that movement ‘trends’. Me, I don’t move like that. When I change just a little, I have to think about it a lot before hand.’

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