I have known Katsuyuki Sakazume over the past twelve years after our first meeting in New York City.

I was immediately drawn by his exuberant energy, his intelligence and his great powers as an artist and philosopher.

We talked about the role that the potter has enjoyed over the past forty years when potters, sculptors and painters began to thoroughly delve into and explore in new ways the potentialities of clay.

That pottery can function as sculpture and painting with absolute ability to stimulate thought process is all apparent in the whole of Sakazume's work that I have had chance to observe over the past years.

He is the mature artist and craftsman, his work demonstrating that art and craft are one and the same, His work is deeply rooted in Japanese culture and tradition, and yet speaks directly to the Western mind.

This is evident not only in his simplest of tea bowls and other vessels but also in his recent monumental systemic and totemic statements. The latter seem to harken back to the powerful sentinel figures in evidence in the Haniwa Period.

These large, hard edged clay forms are reminiscent of sculptural work of Western artists over the past five decades as can be seen in the pioneering work of such influential artist as Donald Judd, Robert Morris, Carl Andre and the painter Mark Rothko to name a few.

Sakazume's kiln building prowess is unsurpassed.

He is an exceptional and extraordinary technician.

These structures are not only objects of great beauty and utility but are pieces of architecture that speak as powerful sculptural statements of purpose.

They are timeless.

Katsuyuki Sakazume's wall murals of clay and steel plus his free standing monoliths seem to bridge the gap between Eastern and Western creative thinking.

His thinking looks at all possibilities and transcends to the dimension.