Ceramic artist
Mami Ishiwata
Based in Kobe, Hyogo, Japan
Career
1973 — Born in Saiki, Ōita.
1979 — Moved to Kobe, Hyōgo.
1998 — Encountered ceramics while working for a company.
2008–2017 — Worked at Pottery Class Musashino in Musashino, Tokyo.
2011 — Began making commissioned tableware after providing vessels for Guest House Kamejikan in Kamakura.
2016 — Exhibited at Kōbō kara no Kaze.
2019 — Exhibited at Craft Fair Matsumoto.
Late 2019 — Returned her base to Kobe and continued working in the mountains of Mount Rokko.
Today — Presents her work through solo and group exhibitions at galleries and department stores across Japan.
Materials and expression: quiet tones of white, grey, and black rust; classical forms, textured rims, and glazes with subtle variation.
About the artist
Mami Ishiwata’s work is grounded in quiet tones of white, grey, and black rust. Classical forms such as ridged, octagonal, and lobed vessels meet glazes with slight mottling and unevenness, giving newly fired pieces an expression shaped by the passage of time.
For Ishiwata, firing is not the end of an object’s life. Fine cracks in the white glaze gradually reveal themselves through use, while the surface of the black rust slowly develops a soft, warm sheen.
Alongside everyday tableware, she continues to make heat-resistant vessels that can be used directly over a flame or in an oven. Cooking, serving, and eating are brought naturally together through the vessel.
Her work does not seek to remain forever new. Through repeated use, each piece gathers traces of daily life and gradually becomes an object belonging to its user.