an afternoon at the autumn Mashiko pottery fair
This is a belated post about my trip to Japan in the fall of 2025.
For a long time, a ceramist friend of mine had been telling me amazing stories about her time in Mashiko, so when I finally booked my trip to Japan I knew it was a must visit for me.
Mashiko is a well-known pottery town located in Tochigi Prefecture, just a couple hours away from Tokyo by train. Twice a year, the town of Mashiko comes together to hold one of Japan’s largest pottery fairs with over 500 tents and even more local artists, artisans, and food vendors.
By chance, their autumn fair and my trip just happened to overlap, so I made my way from Tokyo to spend the day there (after a few hours and some adrenaline-filled train transfers).
While my time in Japan up to that point had been mostly quiet and reflective, being at the fair was a welcome change. And being in a place with such a rich history of pottery and folk art, the ceramics did not disappoint. There were tents packed into every square, corner, and alley, and seas of pots that were traditional, contemporary, and sculptural, all side by side. I allowed myself three pottery purchases, a rule I ended up breaking very quickly.
But the highlight of my little trip was the people that I met there. I stopped a few times to chat at a tent shared by Venice Aka, Narita Soei, and Mr. and Mrs. Ogata. There, I also met Yong—a Thai ceramist who lived in Mashiko previously, but is now based in Tokyo—who kindly decided to be my tour guide. She showed me to the local pottery studio she used to work at, the fall colors of a nearby pond, and introduced me to her friends who were vending all over town.
Later, I went back to Mr. and Mrs. Ogata to ask if they’d like to trade with one of my translucent porcelain nerikomi bowl I brought with me, and they generously offered three pieces in return.
By late afternoon, the light had gone golden and the vendors were beginning to wrap their pieces carefully back into newspaper and cloth. Watching the fair wind down had its own quiet pleasure–the same hands that had thrown and glazed and fired everything on display now tucking it all away again, loading kilns-worth of work into the backs of vans. After both Yong and I said our goodbyes to the other vendors, we decided to head back to Tokyo together.
Thank you to everyone I met there for making my time in Mashiko so memorable, and I hope I can come back to Japan to visit soon.
