Seagrove Pre-Conference Artists

Main Conference Panelist

Registration/Schedule

Invited Guest Artists of Studio Touya include:

John Neely and Joseph Sand.

Studio Touya is owned and operated by Takuro and Hitomi Shibata

Hitomi Shibata @studiotouya

Hitomi Shibata is a Japanese native and a ceramic artist in Seagrove, North Carolina. Has Ceramic art degrees (Bachelor of Education & Master of Education in ceramic art) from Okayama University in Japan. She got professional career in Shigaraki which is one of the oldest and biggest pottery villages in Japan. Rotary International scholarship brought her to the USA and became a special student at University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth in 2002. She moved to Seagrove, NC, USA in 2005, and set up her permanent pottery studio which is the biggest potters town in USA in 2007. She makes functional woodfired pottery and sculptural ceramic work in her studio and fires wood kilns. In 2017, she became a member of International Academy of Ceramics (IAC) in Geneva, Switzerland. Has many exhibitions in Japan, USA and Internationally.

Takuro Shibata @takuroshibataceramics

Takuro Shibata is a Japanese native, ceramic artist in Seagrove, NC which is

one of the biggest pottery town in North Carolina, USA. He holds a degree in engineering and applied chemistry from Doshisha University in Kyoto, Japan. His interest in ceramics led him to become an apprentice at local pottery studio in Shigaraki in 1997. He and his wife Hitomi first visited Seagrove, NC in 2003 and returned to Seagrove area two years later when Takuro accepted a position as the director of STARworks Ceramics. They established Studio Touya in historic Seagrove and built a Shigaraki style Anagama kiln. Takuro has developed a national reputation as a studio potter and as a wild clay specialist, and invited by many conferences and workshops includes NCECA, Penland School of Crafts and Woodfire NC Conference in the past. He was selected as a member of International Academy of Ceramics (IAC) in Geneva, Switzerland in 2019.

Studio Touya Pottery Wood Kilns

 Takuro and Hitomi have an Anagama plus two chamber wood-fired kiln, and built a new smaller wood kiln.

They built their Shigaraki style Anagama (16 feet long, 7 feet wide and 5 feet high) with catenary arch salt chamber (6 feet long, 4 feet wide and 6 feet tall) in 2009-2010. They both were active potters in Shigaraki, Japan, and had many chances to help firing many different wood-fired kilns in US & Japan. It looks like a very typical Anagama, but it has some new ideas from American wood kilns, for example they made 4 side stoke holes (normally no stoke holes for Anagama in Shigaraki), and added big salt chamber to get a variety of results from the Anagama Chamber. Also, they made the second chamber's firebox bigger enough to be able to fire by itself. So they can fire just second chamber to make functional table wares.

Details:

www.studiotouya.com

@studiotouya