Mr.Katsuyuki Sakazume's craftsmanship of a ceramic artist is completely different from any other craftsman's conduct and attitude toward the ceramic art I have ever observed across the country.

In this sense he could not be called a ceramic craftsman acclimated to the traditional Japan's pottery art.

His work, in most cases, takes the form of geometric structure with its lines and surfaces imperceptibly curved.

It would be difficult to find out a variety of distinctive features from the shape he has created.

But it is apparent that his work, massively devised in a rectangular deformity, shows anything but like a sophisticated piece of work with images on it as if fluttering about on the sleeve in an elegant and flowing manner.

His work gives you an overwhelming feeling of existence in the presence of such objects that might not be called ceramic art any more.

A knock on his work would give you a certain resonance, certainly different from the one coming from ordinary earthenware.

The resonance you recognize then would be like the one you hear when you knock on the metal or something.

Also in his work, the image change in hue and touch of the earthenware made in the process of kilnning is different from a well-known image change chromatically made by enameling.

His work might rather give you a feeling that he has extracted the earthbound spirituality-like essence from the source of clay to expose the gnome on the surface of his earthenware.

His method of firing and hardening is the most important factor that decisively characterizes his work.

He has tried to master the secrets of firing, the most fundamental process of the craftsmanship of earthenware.

In the process of firing you would notice the temperature rising well over 1,370 degrees Celsius and would be told that it may stand much higher at other immeasurable points.

This is the marriage of clay with fire, a most 'erotic' encounter or the fruits of romance, I should say.

Mr.Sakazume has created his own style, different from that of other Japanese artists, not acclimated to the fragility and dampness of Japan's clay, on the ground of his stay in America for ten years.

It goes without saying that Mr.Peter H.Voulkos he encountered with must have given an influence on him.

(Director of an Utsunomiya museum of art : TANI Arata)