In Miyama, Shirataka Town, Yamagata Prefecture, there are the remains of a Miyama-yaki kiln that operated in the early 19th century. Miyama-yaki is famous as a special kiln that fired rare products for the Yonezawa clan.
In the 1960s, Umemura Masayoshi, who was a teacher at the school, started researching ceramic shards with the aim of reviving Miyama-yaki.
He also visited and learned from Shibata, the last inheritor of the techniques of the Narushima kiln, the modern kiln industry in Okiya to which Miyama-yaki belongs, and succeeded in producing pottery using glaze and clay collected from the former raw material production area, and built the Miyama Studio in 1983.
Since then, a traditional craft village, “Nodoka Village,” was established around Miyama Pottery, which was recognized as a traditional craft. Miyama studio was renamed “Miyama Kobo Tsuchidango” and Kaneda Toshiyuki, an apprentice of Umemura, inherited the name along with his techniques.
