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Ogawa, Hiroshi Transcript 3
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| Title | Ogawa, Hiroshi Transcript 3 |
| Date | 2008-04-08 |
| Interviewee | Ogawa, Hiroshi |
| Interviewer | Uhlig, Elizabeth |
| Transcriber | Toliver, Christy |
| Subject | Japanese Americans
Buddhism
Clergy
Education
Pottery
Japanese American college students
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| Geographic Subject | Kyoto (Japan)
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| Original Format | Microsoft Word
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| Data of Digital Converstion | 2010-08-26 |
| Original Collection | Japanese-American Association of Lane Co., OR, Oral History Collection
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| Other Formats | PDF |
| Restrictions | Permission to use must be obtained from the Oregon Multicultural Archives, OSU Special Collections & Archives Research Center. |
| Digital Format | PDF |
| Language | English |
| Full Text | Japanese- American Association of Lane County, Oregon - Oral History Collection Hiroshi Ogawa- Part 3 Date: March 8, 2008 Place: Hiroshi Ogawa's workshop, Elkton, Oregon Length: 00: 24: 43.24 Interviewee: Hiroshi Ogawa Interviewer: Elizabeth Uhlig Transcriber: Christy Toliver [ begin audio 3 - [ 00: 00: 08.04]] [ EU] So you said you were studying in the day mostly with other women and...? [ HO] Yeah, well, I was making pots. So. And then, you know, the business men. And then we would meet, it was usually on a Sunday that the sensei would come. His name was Azuma Ken. And he would, you know, talk and different things like that. But, uh... [ EU] Was the kind of pottery you were making, was that different than, from what you had been doing in the United States? [ HO] Uh, the techniques were very different. And... for the first year that I was there they had Shimpos, which, uh, [ loud noise in background.] Keiko? [ speaking to another person in the background] They had, uh, wheels, Shimpos, that they turned clockwise. And so I had to get used to that. Then they got Shimpos that would go both ways, the wheel. So that... [ EU] So is that the opposite of America? [ HO] Yeah. [ EU] They were run counterclockwise? [ HO] Yeah. Americans go counterclockwise and Japanese go clockwise. And so it was, uh, you know, it was a difference there. And, uh, you do everything by - well, I learned anyway - everybody throws off the hump. Off a large piece and you just make pots. Um. And so, yeah, um, it was a big learning curve I guess. [ EU] Did you travel around visiting other kilns and seeing...? [ 00: 02: 32.14] [ HO] I did a little bit. I did more in 1986 when I went back for about, oh, I want to say a month and a half I went and visited a whole lot more. But, uh... Yeah, I remember, well there was this book Daniel Rhodes wrote and it's Tamba Pottery. And that's what, and you know, you go there. Um. It just excites you. It's like, " Wow!" You know. And it's a whole different world than American pottery. I mean, I do think, in some ways I have tried to build and establish this area right here - my studio and the kiln and the home and everything - very much like what I saw in Japan. And I think that's what, in some ways, causes potters, students, and things like that, that come to visit here, they go look at the kiln and everything. They just, it's a whole different concept than working in some huge concrete building with, you know, more of an industrial mindset, rather than a pottery lifestyle. And so, yeah, I was blown away by that there. You know. And that was 1970 I'd say. [ EU] So you lived in Kyoto for how many years then? [ HO] Uh, well, lived in Osaka. I lived in Osaka for a little over two, two and a half years. And, um, the studio was between Osaka and Kyoto and the university was in Kyoto. So I used to ride the rails like three times a week up to Kyoto. And it would take me about an hour, fifteen minutes to get to school every day. And then the studio, I mean, on the way back I would stop. I had one friend, uh, she was a secretary at the English school I taught at. She was also in the pottery cooperative. And so, uh, she would, we would try to meet maybe once or twice a week. So she would be wondering when I was going and I'd say, " Oh, I'll go after classes." I'd be there at two o'clock or something. So we would make pots together and everything. And, let's see, it nineteen, 1971 she, she and her husband went to New Zealand. And she, and he was studying to get his PhD and she was working out of a pottery studio there. When we went to visit she, um, she was living there. And we went to her studio and I saw all these New Zealand potters. It was more similar to Japanese way of pottery than the American way. So it was very, very nice. Since that time she has been here a couple times and fired my kiln. Yeah, we've kept, uh, letter writing communication for close to forty years now. [ laughs] [ 00: 07: 09.00] [ EU] So when you talk about the Japanese, I mean, c-, maybe we could give like visual picture for the people that are listening. ' Cause we're sitting now, why don't you describe your studio. [ HO] Oh, it's ostentatious this studio. The fire burnt down this, my old studio, which I really loved because I think people who came here could see the struggle of being a potter. [ laughs] And now you come in and, " Wow, this guy's got it made. He must be a trust fund baby or something." [ laughs hard] Of which I sort of am because I get, I've received so many donations from everyone to build this, you know. [ EU] Yeah. The fire was in, uh, that was 2003? [ HO] 2003, yes. So it's been, well it's four and a half years. It will be five years this October. [ EU] So you lost your old studio? [ HO] Yeah. [ EU] Everything at that. [ 00: 08: 18.25] [ HO] Yeah. Yeah, all my books, all the pots. All my poetry that I once wrote. [ laughs] Yeah, I lost, um, different things-- photographs and images that I can't, you know, replace. But, uh, the books, I've received a couple of box loads of books. All those books up there. [ gestures towards some books in his studio] I don't know if you've heard of him-- his name is Jack Troy. He's this wonderful potter. Uh, and he, he sent me all these books of his that he had more than one copy of. And they were all the same books that I had lost. And Ceramics Monthly sent me all those [ coughs] magazines, I think it was from, from 1986, back to 1986, they sent me all their magazines for free. And Studio Pottery did the same thing. So, I, so [ laughs], uh, you know, I got all my, you know, quite a bit anyway. And, um, but as far as the studio, I think people have asked, what did I learn in Japan. And I always say that I feel the biggest thing I learned about Japan was use of space. There were sixteen of us in this cooperative, of which, oh, I don't know what the square footage would have been, but it was like, uh, I want to say five- hundred square feet. And, uh, that's not a lot of space. But usually there'd only be about four or five of us there at a time anyway, so [ coughs] it wasn't bad. But to manage all the pots and keep some sort of rotation going of work they did it this way [ moves to demonstrate]. We had boards and we just made it on a board [ demonstrating something] and then we pushed the board in on these racks. Well, in America you have things like this [ gestures to something in his studio]-- you have cabinets. And so you put your pot in there, but on one shelf you could put maybe six pots there. But in that situation, because you would put another rack up so you could put boards on, you could put six boards of six pots on each. And, um, they had other ways of doing things that were, and they worked up and down, not spread out as, because in America we all have so much space it seems, we just keep on extending it. And so, um, when I was in Carmel Valley I had at one point six people working for us and I had three kilns and all of that was in basically four- hundred square feet. Like a twenty- by- twenty. And so, um, I think that's where my training paid off, in that I could have all these people on, you know, out with the wheel, what do they call it? Sweat shop [ unintelligible - [ 00: 12: 25.55]]. [ laughs] Each potter got their two and a half feet of space, you know? [ laughs] But, uh, and so this studio has a lot more space and so I'm a little bit indulgent. And I have a fireplace that's right in the middle. Of which, in Japan they do have little fireplaces, but it's right on the ground right in the middle. So... [ 00: 13: 05.09] [ EU] And then attached to this is your, um, the gallery? [ HO] Yes. Yeah. And there are some or maybe, maybe, maybe many in Japan where they have some sort of showroom. And this showroom is huge compared to any showrooms that are usually available in Japan or even the states. But that had two fold purpose in that I do use half of it for about seven, eight months out of the year during the fires where the firing participants, the potters, stay. [ EU] Oh. [ HO] So, yeah, we put mattresses on the floor and four or five potters sleep in that space there. Um... [ EU] I remember when I heard about the fire here in 2003 and how, could you talk a little bit about how you rebuilt and how the pottery community in Oregon help? [ HO] Um. Well, um... Yeah, um, as the firing was, fire was burning, and I just sort of looked at it. I guess I was very stoic. I didn't break down and cry or anything. It was just something. And I just said, " Well, I'll just have to rebuild." And there were potters here at that time and they were quite taken aback that I would be so stoic. But I said, " Well, what is there to do?" I mean, you know, crying isn't going to help. [ laughs] [ EU] They were here wh-, you were doing firing at the time? [ HO] We were getting ready to do a firing. [ EU] But that didn't cause the fire? [ 00: 15: 30.30] [ HO] No, that didn't cause the fire. No. And so, uh, I called a few people and, uh, told them what happened. And within, within a week, uh, I had, uh, received over twenty- thousand dollars in donations. And then, uh, that same weekend - the fire was on a Thursday - and that weekend, Saturday, Sunday, was Clay Fest up in Eugene. And this one potter friend, Don Clark, wrote a letter to Ceramics Monthly. So he told them what happened and that I didn't have any insurance [ laughs], " so if you have anything, please make a donation." So I got money from a whole vast cross section of potters from the United States. And then, uh, you know, the Japanese- American community up in Eugene, um, I don't know, maybe [ unsure of word maybe - [ 00: 17: 09.30]] did something. Twisted their arms, forced them to give me, make ' em give me, make ' em give ' em money. [ laughs] But then I had a group down in Carmel Valley that I showed with all the time for the past twenty- eight years now. But, uh, they got together. So all these people raised different amounts of money. The local community here, they had a benefit concert, dinner, concert, and auction. [ EU] It was here in Elkton? [ HO] Yeah. And so, uh, Marty, Marty was able to contribute, more or less the profits from that night. He contributed like, oh, I don't know, I want to say like fifteen- hundred. The concert, they just had a glass bucket, you know, people put money in there. And that raised, I don't know, three- thousand, four- thousand dollars. Um. I mean people were so generous, there was this one friend, anyway [ laughs], uh, he just pulled five one- hundred dollar bills and went like this [ gestures] and put them in there. [ laughs] You know? And, uh, so everybody was quite generous. I mean, the local Elkton community, the Eugene people, the Carmel Valley people. And, uh, yeah, I was able to, um, I received, oh, it was over fifty- thousand dollars. And the fire was October 10th, and I'd say by November 25th I had, let's say, close to fifty- thousand dollars. The insurance company gave me fourteen- thousand dollars for the destruction of an out- building. [ laughs] [ EU] That's what they... huh... [ 00: 19: 38.04] [ HO] [ laughs] And so, uh, and then, uh, so, you know, I was planning on just putting up in some ways, at the beginning - the first week as we were cleaning everything all up and everything - some sort of lean- to that I could just put together, pound together, and it'll work. You know, and, but after getting that much money and then Ken Nagao drew up the plans. [ EU] He's an architect from Eugene? [ HO] Yeah. Yeah. And he drew up the plans and did it for free and, uh, Jeff Smith, the guy that helped build this place, he looked at it and he says, " Oh, yeah, this, we could do this. This really sturdy and this and this...." And he liked the design with the Dutch hip roof that they call it. [ EU] But it looks very much like a Japanese farm house or... [ HO] Yeah, well I asked Jeff, I said, " How come they call this a Dutch hip roof?" I said, " Because the Japanese have the same sort of roofs and stuff." And he says, " I don't know." [ laughs] But, uh, so, um, yeah we went in to the, whatever it is, the city planner and we submitted the plans and they looked at them. And we had our permit, I don't know, within half an hour. And Jeff was saying, " Yeah, the only reason, usually they don't do this here in Roseburg." [ laughs] He says, " It could take a week or two weeks." But, you know, " Most of the plans" he says, " that I submit, you know, they're hand drawn by me." [ laughs] He says, " But this is a real professional job." [ laughs] And so they just looked at it and they, boom. You know, and they gave me a permit and so, uh, we started building this. And, uh, it... it cost more than what I hoped. And, uh, spent way over budget, but, uh, got it finished. Yeah, I received a loan from CERF-- that's, uh, Craft Emergency Relief Fund. And they gave me an eight- thousand dollar loan of which I have since paid back. And I did take out a home equity loan. Which was too bad, because the house was all paid for. [ laughs] And so now I got house payments again. Yeah, but this got built and so that was good. [ EU] So within how many months then were you back up making pots and...? [ 00: 23: 02.14] [ HO] Um, well, it took about... eight months to finish building this, but right at that time, in June I guess, I came down with staph infection. And so I was hospitalized for nine days. And ran up this huge hospital bill. Um, and, uh... And I think I had my first firing, after everything was complete, around one year-- September, October the following year. And in some ways my, my, uh, I want to say my health recovery has been really slow, but I think it's only been in the last, really last, since this year, last three months have I felt like I'm finally back where I used to be. You know, four years ago. So that held up the progress a little bit. You know. But other than that. So. [ EU] All right, let's take a break. [ HO] Okay. [ EU] This will be the end of Part 3 then. [ HO] Oh. Okay. [ 00: 24: 43.17] |
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