Final Showdown! Sugiyama!

After working for a few weeks in Enzan, I made my way to my final WWOOF host in Kamogawa. At the southern tip of the Chiba province, Kamogawa is about two hours southeast from Tokyo by bus, near the Pacific coast- a beautiful place. The host family was great. Sugiyama Harunobu, the head of the house, has an interesting history. He did not go to college and instead worked as an archeologist, assisting with excavations in southern Tokyo (Kamakura). He moved to Kamogawa about 20 years ago to found a ceramics studio. He Currently makes pottery as fine art, produces ceramic bells for an annual festival,
teaches ceramics classes for all ages, and is the manager for an organic rice cooperative in the area. The following article sums up his pottery background very well:






The sort of pottery Harunobu does is very unique, even in Japan. The oven he uses to fire his artwork is a traditional design over a thousand years old, which he constructed himself. According to Harunobu's estimation, there are only about 15 ovens of this type in all of Japan. His style is completely natural and utilizes no artificial glazes. The only ingredients are natural clay, a naturally constructed furnace (a huge, earthen whale of a thing), a wood-fueled fire and skill. It is really, really sweet. I spent a lot of money purchasing some of these artistic delicacies...

The Work

The work at the Sugiyamas house varied according to the weather. If the weather permitted, the work was maintaining the rice paddies and preparing a new one for planting. I got to learn a lot about organic rice paddies!

Cutting down brush and weeds on the hills surrounding the paddy (I took the photo. Can you tell?)

Sugiyama using a machine that beats the tilled soil to just under water level

Here we are loading up the truck with baby rice stalks and women. We took these to the new paddy to plant.

Planting rice in the paddy

Unfortunately, most of the time the weather would not permit outdoor work. It basically rained every day at least once and on many occasions for days on end. In this case, I pounded old, used clay with a big wooden hammer. This clay, which came from mess-ups and discards, would be rehydrated after pounding for further use. It was not terrible work, but not much fun either. Good exercise, but it got a touch boring after ten days of the same routine. Because it was more tiring work, however, I got to work fewer hours- a nice bonus.

My workspace with Conan the Barbarian-style mallet

I did lots of stuff and had lots of fun. Here are some photos.