Derek Larsen

1975

Born in Kansas

1998

Builds anagama single-chamber kiln in Kansas

2000

Graduates from University of Kansas

2003

Earns masters degree in ceramics from Southern Cross University (Australia)

2010

Takes up residency at Shiga Ceramic Cultural Park

2011

Builds anagama kiln in Kakidaira, Aichi Prefecture

2013

Builds anagama kiln in Kyoto

Lives and works in Kyoto

 

“I started making pottery in high school. We had a choice of music or pottery or music, and I chose the former. I was working part time on a ranch. Riding the range on a horse, I fell in love with the endlessly rolling plain, with the mossy boulders, with the changing leaves. And I experienced a similar appeal in the anagama-fired work that our pottery teacher showed the class. I guess something clicked for me in the rough-hewn elegance that the Japanese call shibui. That led me to major in pottery in college. Japanese pottery captivated irreversibly when I first saw a Ko-Iga (pre-18th-century Iga ware) hanairé vase in a museum. No longer a plains dweller, I reside today and fire my kiln in the embrace of the verdant hills of Kyoto.”