The discovery, in 1884, of shards of historic pottery in the Yayoi neighborhood of present-day Tokyo lent the area’s name to a whole 1,300 years (roughly 1,000 BCE to 300 AD) of Japanese civilization. Distinct from the ornate ‘rope-patterned’ styles that preceded them, the loosened shapes of Yayoi pots reflected a newly agrarian focus, prioritizing utility over décor, quickness over formalism. The ceramics that emerge from the light-filled Los Angeles studio of Shio Kusaka feel similarly more concerned with life and lightness than the burden of tradition. Kusaka’s pots can incorporate everything: from the wondrous – dinosaurs! – to the quotidian sweetness of golden seed-studded strawberries.
Born in Morioka, Japan, Kusaka was inspired by the elegant dishes and cups that her grandmother used in traditional tea ceremonies, incorporating the ritual’s moments of reflection into her own process. When Kusaka moved to Los Angeles in 2003, the city’s thriving ceramic and crafts community allowed her to experiment with the shapes of clay as much as with the finishes she could use to adorn them.
Today, she shares a studio compound with her husband, the painter Jonas Wood and, though they maintain separate and distinct practices, the communal space produces evidence of a shared working life. Depictions of Kusaka’s vessels often pop up in Wood’s bold, graphic canvases and prints; Kusaka’s most playful forms sometimes literally take on the shapes of some of Wood’s favourite motifs.
Meanwhile, the mischievous dinosaurs that appear to have wandered from science textbooks into Kusaka’s studio testify to another familial influence: her young daughter Momo’s infatuation with the creatures of the Jurassic era. In the studio, Kusaka’s vessels are accompanied by a mini-menagerie of cheetahs, tigers, penguins and unicorns. Each one, naturally, is small enough to fit into a child’s grip.