15 or 16 years ago, when I was visiting a hot spring with my friend, an inspiration came to me that it might be interesting to make a bath tub with Shigaraki clay. And now, we are doing our best to try to send these earth and body friendly products to the whole world.
About 1,300 years ago from now, when Nara was a capital of Japan, molds for the head of Great Buddha Statue made of bronze were said to be fired in a Shigaraki kiln, which means there already existed such a huge kiln in Shigaraki area then. People usually made roof tiles and other everyday tools since Shigaraki kiln was not a private pottery maker for local rulers. However, Shigaraki pottery boasts of its long tradition unlike no other.
Shigaraki clay is coarse and resistant to fire, so bigger works are possible to create such as giant vases, jars and bathtubs.
There are 2 ways of firing to create a ceramic ware; oxidized fire
and reductional fire. To put it simply, in oxidized fire, the temperature is raised gradually, on the other hand, in reductional fire, we fire with flames. We take pride in creating our ceramic wares with reductional fire, because this way of firing provides us with ceramic wares of greater resistance to shocks and winter cold compared with those made in oxidized firing.
Talking about a strength of Shigaraki ceramic wares, they will last semipermanently unless you handle them roughly. For example, you should not leave a ceramic bowl filled with hot water outside in winter, and it is very likely to break. However, as ceramic wares made in the Jomon Era (which is approximately 16,500 to 3,000 years ago from now) still exist, the ones from Shigaraki kiln can last for thousands of years without any problem.
Now people tend to pay much attention to how healthy the included elements in a hot spring water are, and there's even a law to order the hot spring providers to measure the included elements in the water once every 2 years. It seems radium included hot springs are valued highest of all, and I went all the way to Tamagawa Onsen (Hot Springs) to study these radium hot springs. Since low dose radiation from radium is said to be good for our health, we add powdered radium ores to our clay and give our bathtubs a special healing potential. Our bathtubs also emit far-infrared rays and purify the water itself, so they make extremely healthy private Onsen.
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