Yozan Kiln: Reviving the Stories Behind Japanese Ceramics

I've used the same small Yozan mamezara (bean plates) for years without thinking much about their patterns, beyond their beauty. A checkerboard was just a checkerboard. The blue vines were just pretty. A morning glory was just a beautiful floral motif.

But at Yozan Kiln, every shape and pattern has a story. During my visit, I sat down with the kiln's president, Tsuji Kenji (辻賢嗣), who has spent around 50 years working with ceramics. As we talked, he moved from one piece to another, revealing the history behind their shapes, patterns, and even their names.

By the end of the afternoon, I realized he wasn't just protecting old designs. He was learning about where they came from, then figuring out how they could still earn a place on a modern table.

Yozan Kiln, formerly Tsujiyo Seitosho, sits in Yoshida, a district of Ureshino in Saga Prefecture. The porcelain made here is called Hizen Yoshida-yaki ceramics (肥前吉田焼), and the area has been firing it for more than 400 years. The family's own roots, though, trace back to nearby Arita.

He told me the family's main house is Tsuji Seijisha (辻精磁社) in Arita, an official kiln appointed to produce porcelain for the imperial family. Toward the end of the Edo period, during the Ansei era (1854 to 1860), the family's second son Yosuke left Arita and opened his own kiln here in Yoshida.

In Japan, it’s common for the eldest son to take over family businesses, while a second son either stays on or leaves to establish himself elsewhere. Tsuji is the sixth generation in that line and found himself responsible for it much sooner than expected, at 23.

The longer we talked, the harder it was to ignore the books. They are stacked everywhere around Tsuji’s office. Throughout our talk, he kept referring back to them, pulling from old sources, Edo-period ceramics especially, to study the forms and patterns Yozan still makes.

“Above all, I just like them, the old things,” he told me.

He has also traveled with his design staff to China, Turkey, Spain, and Germany. China was about tracing the roots of Japanese ceramics back to their source, while Europe was about design itself, including the Bauhaus in Germany. All of it feeds Tsuji’s work, but when he described Yozan's relationship with historical ceramics, he drew a line I keep thinking about.

"Not so much reproduction as revival."

For him, they're a starting point, not a template. He combines them with decades of study to arrive at something that belongs to Yozan. And after half a century, he is unapologetic about following his own taste.

"After 50 years of this, I pretty much know my own taste. It's not about whether it sells. I end up making the things I like," he said.

Perhaps the best way to understand what the president means by “revival” is through the stories behind Yozan's designs.

During our conversation, he picked up a small vessel called a nozoki, a deep dish dating back to the Edo period. “Unless you peer in, you can't see the food,” he explained. Traditionally used for small servings such as shiokara, Yozan has recently brought the form back into production.

Other stories are hidden in the patterns. Many are painted in sometsuke (染付), the classic blue-and-white underglaze style that Arita made famous, and each carries more history than its simple lines suggest. The familiar ichimatsu checkerboard evolved from an earlier ishidatami, or flagstone, pattern before becoming associated with kabuki actor Sanogawa Ichimatsu during the Edo period. A deer-and-maple-leaf design prompted the president to recite a classical poem from memory, revealing cultural references once understood through seemingly simple motifs.

I love the design process here, and how it’s not just about copying, but about understanding their story and character. He told me that even reviving an old design still leaves room for expression. When instructing the painters on an Edo-period (朝顔), or morning glory, he tells them to paint it as if "the morning glory is dancing."