Fumiyama Kanae: Handmade Japanese Tableware and How to Choose It

Fumiyama Kanae pottery covers more ground than most single-maker catalogs: plates, bowls, cups, a rice bowl, and a donburi bowl, all made in Kanagawa, Japan. A gray-navy-blue plate, a white clay plate, and a rust-green bowl show how differently the same hands can finish a surface.

A plate in gray, navy, and blue

The plate above layers gray, navy, and blue across an 8-sun surface, with a rim that rises 2cm. It is pottery (ceramic), made by Fumiyama Kanae in Kanagawa, Japan. The color sits in bands rather than a single wash, which is what gives the plate its depth when it is turned under light instead of viewed flat.

Origin and material

Fumiyama Kanae works in Kanagawa, Japan, and the catalog splits between two closely related clay bodies: pottery (ceramic) for most pieces, and Japanese pottery (ceramic) for a smaller group. Plates lead the catalog, with bowls, cups, small bowls, donburi bowls, and a rice bowl filling out the rest — a wider spread of forms than a single-form maker offers.

The plate above sets white clay against a plain glaze instead of layered color, and its rim climbs higher than the gray-navy-blue plate, to 2.2cm. It is Japanese pottery (ceramic), also 8-sun in size, which makes it a useful comparison piece: same size class, same maker, but a completely different read on the table depending on whether you want color or restraint.

Sizes across the bowls

Bowl depths vary more than the plates do. A small donburi bowl in gray-navy holds 7.1cm of depth, a gray-navy small bowl comes in at 3.7cm, and a rust-colored green small bowl sits at 3.8cm. A rice bowl finished in rust and green rises 5.6cm at the rim, deep enough to hold rice through a full meal without needing a refill partway through.

The bowl above pairs rust and green tones across a 7-sun shallow form, with a rim rising 5cm. A shallow bowl this wide works better for something you eat with a fork or spoon and want spread out — a curry, a salad, a portion you want to see all at once rather than dig down into.

Choosing your first piece

If color is what draws you, compare the gray-navy-blue plate against the rust-green bowl before choosing — they represent two different directions the same maker takes a glaze. If you want the plainer route, the white clay plate is the one to start with. The full range is in the Fumiyama Kanae collection, with plates under Plate and bowls under Bowl Collection.