Yoji Yamada

Yoji Yamada works in the English slipware tradition, filtered through a distinctly Japanese hand: liquid clay slip is trailed, combed, or jostled across a half-dried clay body, building the raised linework and rippling, marbled patterning that define the style. Where historical slipware, and much of the Japanese revival built from it after the technique lapsed with the Industrial Revolution, tends toward thick, rustic forms, Yamada throws his pieces notably thin and light, letting the slip trail move unforced across the surface rather than following a fixed design, so pattern and color build in loose, layered depth rather than flat decoration. He pairs this slipware core with soda glazing, learned directly under English potter Lisa Hammond, in which vaporized soda ash reacts with the clay body inside the kiln to leave unpredictable orange-peel texture and flame-flashed color across each piece. The result reads as slipware at a glance but carries a modern lightness and everyday practicality — plates, cups, and tableware with lively, improvisational surfaces rather than the heavier, folk-craft weight slipware is usually associated with.