1885-1957
male
Born in Tsuyama, he became a foster child of Fusakichi Asamoto (née Sugisaki), who had opened a kiln in Hayashida, at the age of two. When he was just 13 years old, around the time he graduated from school, his father Fusakichi, who had moved to a kiln in Ninomiya, Tsuyama City at the time, taught him how to use the potter’s wheel. Thereafter, he went to Awaji to train at Minpei Pottery, and then to Izushi in Hyogo Prefecture.
Prefecture, followed by Ibe, Asagiri Pottery in Akashi, and Inami, one after another, all with a potter’s wheel on his shoulder and a smile on his face. During that time, he also worked under the care of Mr. Fujie, the director of the Kyoto Pottery Experiment Station, and at a pottery school for about three years.
In 1911, he went to Shizuhata Pottery in Shizuoka Prefecture, where he worked for about 20 years. During that time, he often returned to Tsuyama, and in 1935, he also went to Akasaki Pottery in Fukuoka Prefecture. When he was 25 years old, he got a wife from Saeki Town, Akaban County. He spent a happy middle age, but suddenly his child died of illness, followed by the loss of his wife, and he became desperate.
Around 1936, he returned to Tsuyama alone. Since then, he had no fixed place of residence, but built a small charcoal kiln and continued to produce pottery in secret, spending his later years drinking and living in poverty. He spent his later years drinking and living in poverty, but he did his best to train his children. Sakuma Gyozan, Okayasu Kyuzanjin, Hattori Jozan, Doi Shunkin, and others, especially his last apprentices, the brothers Shiraishi Takashi and Shiraishi Hitoshi, are well known.
Kakuzan, who was said to be a wandering potter, followed a strange fate in his relentless pursuit of fire and clay throughout Japan, and passed away in Kawaramachi in 1956 with only a few relatives, including Doi Shunkin, by his side. He was 72 years old.
