Vol. XVII, No. 4. 
SYRACUSE, NEW YORK 
August 1915 
E had planned on publishing a series 
of most interesting and entertaining 
letters from a member of the ceramic 
"sorority" who has been spending the 
last year in China and Japan. By a 
mischance the first letter got away 
from us 5 and we have been so long in 
finding it and so much material has 
accumulated that we may have to 
give up the idea. We are, however, 
publishing in this issue a part of the last letter from Japan as it 
will be of special interest to ceramists. 
1 have visited two potteries, Sakada and Kiukozan, where Satsuma ware 
is made in Kyoto, Japan, and watched the various processes. In the Kiuko- 
zan we were taken first to the room where a young Japanese was turning 
large vases on a wheel. There was a square opening in the floor and a IS inch 
disk in the center a little below the level of floor. The operator, seated on the 
floor, turned this wheel or disk by hand, that is, by placing a stick in a small 
groove in the disk and turning it rapidly, then working with the" clay as long as 
the impetus lasted. He took a large mass of wet clay and placed it in the cen- 
ter and patted and pounded it in a tiny mound and set the wheel going. He 
then worked a bit up into a knot which he deftly flattened out, thinned with 
his hand on under side and a piece of rubber on top, trimmed edge with a 
knife, rounded edge with his hands, made the ridge in center with his rubber 
gauge, put a piece of string through the clay at the bottom and lifted off — a 
saucer. In a moment a cup was made, then a bowl, and then a large vase. 
The vase down to the largest part was made first, cut oft' by string and set 
aside; then the bottom was shaped, the two put together and welded and 
smoothed by the deft fingers andthepieceofrubber,andmoistenedwithwater. 
The gauge was applied; the size and height were found to be perfect, and the 
vase was then cut by a string from the piece of clay on the board and lifted by 
a strap to a board to dry. We then watched other operators make vases, jars 
and bowls, and from this room were taken to see the kilns. The bisque is 
fired every day, but glazing clone only twice a week. The kilns are huge 
mud mounds on the side of a hill, one above another, but connected in some 
way. They were all stacked ready for firing. Wood was the fuel used. 
We were then taken to the buildings where various other things are made 
of porcelain. Dolls, dogs, cats, lions and those small images one sees every- 
where and wonders who ever buys them. The operators here are young Jap- 
anese women. Several had small babies strapped to then- backs while they 
worked. 
We then visited the decorating department, and I wish I could make you 
see the wonderful skill and speed of these workmen, all seated on the floor, 
outlining with precision more rapidly than we can draw, the brush exactly 
vertical between the third and fourth fingers, banding, making borders and all- 
over designs. From there we went to the stock room, and I saw many adora- 
ble shapes in Satsuma which we never see in America. I told a representative 
of the company of the mistake made by most manufacturers in making the 
open sugar so much larger in proportion than the creamer, and put in a plea 
for more shapes suitable to conventional design. 
Separate from the rooms and buildings in which the Japanese do then- best 
work, are places where workmen are turning out large numbers of dreadful 
looking vases with ornate handles, a mass of brilliant color and cheap gold, 
impossible things which fill our five and ten-cent stores. I asked what they 
did with these things, as the Japanese never use them in their homes. The 
reply was what I feared it would be: "We ship them to America. The for- 
eign trade wants them." You should see the cheap wares the Japanese and 
Chinese use. A simple bit of decoration or no decoration at all, soft color 
glazes, nothing to offend in any way. If we woidd educate the taste of our 
poor people, it seems to me we must urge those buyers who purchase these 
goods in large quantities, to ask for the things used in this country and not the 
monstrosities in gold and color which we now take in such numbers. 
The last department visited was the shipping room, and there we saw the 
packers busily engaged in wrapping and checking up a large order for Burley 
& Co., of Chicago. 
Haliic B. Smith. 
June 21, 1915, 
Mrs. Smith's remarks upon the sort of stuff made for the 
American market is a sad commentary on the results of art edu- 
cation in our public schools, the lack of adequate explanation, 
from the standpoint of artistic taste, of the objects in our mu- 
seums, and in fact, the lack of such objects of art crafts in most 
of our museums; and to go still further, the lack of art crafts 
museums in most of our smaller towns, and many of our cities. 
We have been so absorbed in the practical things of life that we 
have failed to create about us an art atmosphere. A feeling 
for the jit and the fine should be as natural as breathing. But 
we will never have it as a nation — never live it as the Japanese 
do — until we have stepped aside from the strenuous life and 
taken time to refresh our souls; to build our homes, our pub- 
lic buildings, our shops even, and our streets, with some thought 
of individual expression and of restful co-relation; to have in 
our shops objects that are harmonious and simple; to 
cast aside the thousand and one useless and frail objects that 
crowd our homes, and upon which we waste our time and our 
thought, as well as our money; to have in our homes, as Wil- 
liam Morris said, only those things that we know to be useful 
and believe to be beautiful, and to acquire a true standard of 
beauty by which we may have courage to take nine tenths of 
our belongings and consign them to the flames, rather than to 
suffer by association with them, a deterioration of taste for our- 
selves or for others. 
It is a difficult matter, however, to have the courage of our 
convictions, so many considerations enter into our lives. There 
are the wedding gifts that must be kept in evidence for fear of 
affronting our friends; there are the early loves that we have 
outgrown but which association still holds dear; there are the 
things we keep because they are old or belonged in the family. 
But accidents occasionally relieve us of some of these spots on 
the fair face of the moon and we need not replace them. But 
worst of all, with many of us — perhaps with most — money con- 
siderations lead us not only to endure, but to perpetrate and 
disseminate more objects of degenerate art which can be classed 
neither as useful or beautiful. The editor of Keramic Studio 
with the rest must strike her breast and cry "Mea culpa." 
We give this month two pages from the flower note book 
of Mrs. Florence Wyman Whitson as a gentle reminder to our 
students not to let the summer pass without a similar gleaning 
of material for the winter. This note book has some thirty odd 
pages of wild flowers, some of which are quite unusual. The 
names are often missing, since one must be a botanist as well as 
an artist to make comprehensive notes, but names are not 
necessary in this instance. 
Readers of Keramic Studio will be interested to learn that 
the editor, Mrs. Robineau, has just received notice of the award 
of a Grand Prize for her exhibit of porcelains at the San Fran- 
cisco exposition. It is a great gratification to be recognized in 
one's own country. The San Francisco exhibit consisted of 
102 porcelains representing carved decoration, crystalline, 
fiamme and mat glazes. 
