The term Mingei was coined in the early Showa period as an abbreviation for minsyū teki kōgei (folk crafts). It was born within the Mingei movement (Japanese Folk Craft Movement), which sought to find unadorned beauty in miscellaneous everyday vessels, rather than established artistic crafts.
The founder of the movement, the philosopher Sōetsu YANAGI (1889-1961), travelled around the country with his allies, the potters, to discover handicrafts that belonged under the Mingei classification.

One of the pottery producing districts they identified was Sarayama in Hita City, a mountainous area in Ōita Prefecture.
The local pottery, which until then had been called “Hita mono,” became known to pottery lovers throughout the country by the name “Onta yaki (Onta ware),” which YANAGI proposed after his visit.

The pottery of Sarayama in Hita had several characteristics that captured YANAGI’s heart.
Firstly, the potter’s clay is refined using a water mill-powered device called kara-usu. Secondly, half of the village’s potters jointly operated a climbing kiln, a connected multi-chambered kiln built on a slope. Lastly, the techniques have been handed down from each potter to their successor, traditionally the eldest son, and the production process from the early days of the operation has been preserved.
The scenes one would associate with an Edo period pottery village producing numerous daily vessels are still alive here.

In addition to the production system, the decorative style of Onta ware is also unique.
Onta ware is embellished in a variety of ways, the most representative of which is the scraped pattern created by a technique known as tobi-kanna.
When a metal tool called kanna is placed on the surface of the vessel and the potter’s wheel is turned, the kanna bounces and rhythmically scrapes the clay on the surface. The result is a beautiful pattern of countless dots, as shown in the image.
Although traditional, their embellished design never looks old-fashioned. It is a simple, hence universal, design.

Although a closed system like this can be viewed negatively, it may be said that maintaining an exclusive system of production, which has been handed down from one generation to the next for a long time in this region, has enabled these old decorative expressions to survive.
Handicrafts are often diluted or eliminated if they expand too much. Onta ware has been able to preserve its own unique design of embellishment, tobi-kanna, by maintaining an isolated position far removed from the theories of the mainstream history of the craft.

It is gratifying that we are still able to continuously obtain Mingei vessels that suit both Japanese and Western cuisine.
Although I dislike using buzzwords, I think that consciously buying and using such vessels contributes to preserving beautiful Japanese handicrafts as a form of “ethical consumption.”