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A wide, low Tamba ware mug by Shozo Gama with diagonal hand carved facets covered in layered ash glaze in honey, sandy earth, white, and deep iron brown tones, with a pale loop handle, photographed against a white background.
Tamba Ware Large Faceted Mug Ash Glaze Honey Tone
Tamba Ware Large Faceted Mug Ash Glaze Honey Tone
Shozo Gama

Tamba Ware Large Faceted Mug Ash Glaze Honey Tone

Sale price$69.00

Three glazes meet on this mug, and none of them were fully directed. Warm honey and sandy earth tones occupy the widest portions of each hand-carved facet, interrupted by streaks of deep iron brown and intervals of white that catch the light with a quiet sheen. Where the glazes converge at the ridges, they bleed into one another, producing tones that exist somewhere between smoke and amber. This layered, unpredictable surface is characteristic of Tamba ware at its most expressive, a tradition practiced without interruption for over 800 years in the hills of Hyogo Prefecture and recognized among Japan's six ancient kilns. Shozo Gama works within that lineage, understanding glaze not as decoration applied to form but as a material with its own inclinations. Wide and grounded in proportion, with a pale loop handle that stands apart from the darker body, the mug holds its complexity without effort.
A wide, low Tamba ware mug by Shozo Gama with diagonal hand carved facets covered in layered ash glaze in honey, sandy earth, white, and deep iron brown tones, with a pale loop handle, photographed against a white background.
Tamba Ware Large Faceted Mug Ash Glaze Honey Tone Sale price$69.00

Meet the Artisan

Shozo Gama

Shozo Gama stands on the northern edge of Tachikui, the historic pottery village of Tamba Sasayama, set on elevated ground where the workshop and gallery open onto the seasonal mountain landscape of Hyogo Prefecture. Here, surrounded by the unhurried rhythms of the Tamba hills, Ichino Motokazu and his son Ichino Shusaku work within one of Japan's most enduring ceramic traditions, shaping each piece entirely by hand from local Tamba clay.

Shusaku Ichino, the third generation of the kiln's practice, has developed a voice that is at once rooted in tradition and quietly forward-looking. Working with wood-fired kilns and ash glazes that shift and deepen through the firing, he pursues the powerful, grounded character that defines the finest Tamba ware, while bringing his own considered sensibility to form and surface. The result is work that carries the weight of 800 years of craft without being bound by it.

From tea bowls and flower vessels to tableware made for daily use, every piece that leaves Shozo Gama reflects the same conviction: that the most meaningful objects are those shaped with patience, fired with intention, and made to belong in the hands and on the tables of those who will use them.