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The bonsai pottery of Nao Tokutake

October 8, 2021 by Jonas Dupuich

One of the highlights of attending the U.S. National Bonsai Exhibition, held every other year in Rochester, New York, is meeting and catching up with people from across the bonsai community.

As luck would have it, Andrew Robson introduced me to Portland ceramicist Nao Tokutake at this year’s event. Nao toured the exhibition with Andrew and me and then sat down with us to record an episode for the Bonsai Wire Podcast.

One of Nao’s pots was on display at the exhibit. It was a modern take on a bag shape that accompanied Dennis Vojtilla’s award-winning Washington Hawthorn (see the tree here).

Modern bag pot

Modern bag pot at the 7th U.S. National Bonsai Exhibition

The photos below are from Nao’s website. He works with a variety of shapes, sizes, and glazes.

Heavy reduced iron rectangle

Heavy reduced iron rectangle
(this and subsequent photos courtesy Nao Tokutake)

Red and green oval

Red and green oval

American Canton

American Canton

Reduced rectangles

Reduced rectangles

Slanted unglazed rectangle

Slanted unglazed rectangle

Drippy sandy indent rectangle

Drippy sandy indent rectangle

Unglazed bag pot

Unglazed bag pot

Red and blue slanted rectangle

Red and blue slanted rectangle

Unglazed indent rectangle

Unglazed indent rectangle

You can learn more about Nao’s work at tokutakebonsai.com.

Listen to the Bonsai Wire Podcast interview with Nao at bonsaiwirepodcast.com.

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Filed Under: Display Tagged With: Pots

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Gabriel Anievas says

    October 8, 2021 at 7:05 pm

    Hello. I just want to know the original inventor of Bonsai? It’s the Japanese or Chinese. Also do they follow a similar pattern or they base their style on mindset intuition?

    • Jonas Dupuich says

      October 9, 2021 at 8:42 pm

      Hi Gabriel! The first known image of bonsai shows up over 1000 years ago in China. The first references to bonsai in Japan are more recent. Chinese and Japanese approaches differ, and there are different approaches within these countries too.

  2. Robert Thatcher says

    October 9, 2021 at 8:49 am

    Wonderful pots. I never heard of the term ‘bag pot’, but what a
    great name for an oval pot with a drawn-in top, an inward facing
    lip.

    • Jonas Dupuich says

      October 9, 2021 at 8:38 pm

      Thanks, Robert! The name is the same in Japanese: fukurobachi.

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