Tamba Tachikui ware

Tachikui sits in east-central Hyogo, near the southwestern edge of old Tamba and close to the former borders with Harima and Settsu. The cooperative office is inside Tamba Traditional Craft Park, Sue no Sato, at Imada-cho Kamitachikui in Tamba-Sasayama. The place becomes tangible through work: about sixty kilns line the area, current cooperative members are centered in the Imada district, and clay preparation, glaze-material purchasing, displays, pottery classes, and festivals all turn around the same production community.

Early Tamba ware was fired mainly in anagama kilns, and the main forms included large jars, storage vessels, grinding bowls, and kneading bowls used around food and household work. Those objects place Tamba Tachikui ware in kitchens, storehouses, and daily labor before they place it on a display shelf. Coiled clay, unglazed surfaces, and vessels made for holding, grinding, and storing give the later tableware a practical line of descent that still appears in cups, plates, bowls, sake flasks, flower vases, and jars.

From the early Edo period, the production area moved from anagama firing toward climbing kilns built along inclined ground. A climbing kiln links several firing chambers in a row, so flame moves upward from the firebox along the slope; the heat travels more efficiently than in the older anagama system, and firing time is shorter. This structure changed what the area could make in quantity and variety, helping expand the range to tea utensils, bowls, small jars, oil jars, salt jars, and other vessels while keeping kiln knowledge central to Tachikui work.

One of the most recognizable actions in Tamba Tachikui ware is the left-turning Tachikui kick wheel. The potter drives the wheel by foot while the hands pull, narrow, and refine the clay wall. That tool gives the work a bodily rhythm as specific as the clay or glaze: cups, bowls, basins, and tea utensils take shape through the meeting of a turning platform, wet clay, and the hand’s pressure.

The surface of Tamba Tachikui ware is built from clay, fire, glaze, and small acts of marking. Ash glaze, red-clay slip glaze, iron glaze, and white glaze appear in the family’s vocabulary across different periods, while surface methods include nail carving, leaf patterns, stamped patterns, poured glaze, tube drawing, and suminagashi. Ash and iron glazes give cups, plates, bowls, sake flasks, and flower vessels an earthy, plainspoken character; leaf and stamped patterns leave the maker’s touch where the hand can feel it.

In the Edo period, tea practice gave Tamba ware new forms, including tea bowls, tea caddies, water jars, and kensui. Later periods added many kinds of tokkuri, white-glazed wares, large containers for sake and soy sauce, industrial wares, and postwar handmade everyday vessels. Today the range includes tea ware, sake ware, rice bowls, basins, plates, mugs, flower vessels, planters, and ornaments, so continuity is visible in use: drinking, eating, arranging flowers, storing, and living with fired clay objects.

The Tamba Tachikui Pottery Cooperative connects the production area through practical work. It jointly produces ceramic clay at a clay-body factory and supplies it to members, purchases clay and glaze materials, displays member work at Sue no Sato, runs pottery classes, holds festivals, and supports training for successors. Continuity here means a system of clay, materials, classrooms, exhibitions, training, and about fifty cooperative members working in the Imada district.