Nerikomi is a contemporary term coined by Yusuke Aida it is not an ancient Japanese term

Nerikomi is not an ancient Japanese term. Nerikomi is a contemporary term conceived by Yusuke Aida to describe his contemporary laminated colored clay. Unfortunately it has become a handle to describe marbleware or laminated colored clay in any form. I only used the term nerikomi after Yusuke Aida used it to describe my work in the late 1990s when he gave me an award. Because I was lecturing in Japan, I used the term as a short cut in lectures because the general public understood it as a structural process of lamination used by Aida. His general process was shown on television in a coffee commercial in the late 1970s when Yusuke Aida offered 100 of his “nerikomi” coffee cups to the first 100 people contacting the advertisers. Regarding the history of colored clay lamination, read this about Egyptian faience: https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/egfc/hd_egfc.htm On Wikipedia I mentioned the history of laminated clay from the Tang and Song Chinese work excavated from tombs which was probably influenced by glass beads which were brought down the Silk Road from the Middle East. There was a broad availability of ceramic production but not glass in China in 600AD. Nor was there a large cobalt production in China at that time. That was also brought down the Silk Road.It was a valuable item used in small amounts on the surface not in the clay. Find this book and the people who wrote in it in 2000 from the Shanghai Museum.

Read about Yusuke Aida. https://encyclopedia.design/2021/11/12/yusuke-aida-japanese-ceramics-designer-industrial-designer/ "Neriage" was a term used which covered some laminated colored clay in the Mingei (folk art) period from around the 1920s. Before that time it's use was even more minimal. It is an expensive way to work. That limited it’s use for production. read this : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mingei Marbled and laminated clay items were brought from China to Japan by monks mainly in the form of a few famous teabowls (Tang Dynasty (618–907 CE) in China). But, due to glass being brought down the Silk Road to China around 618, mainly in the form of beads etc. , the Chinese figured they could make patterns in clay like the glass beads. If you look at the earthenware from Tombs in the Tang Dynasty and later more high fired items from the Song Dynasty 960 to 1279 , which were also brought to Japan at that time by monks travelling between China and Japan. Laminated/marbled items have several descriptions in Chinese which describe several ways of working with slip. clay, etc. Some of the Japanese characters are very similar to the Chinese of course but differing because of language development in both counries. I will not complicate things in this blog by writing all the different descriptions in English and their pictographs in Chinese or Japanese. Read this book: The World of Japanese Ceramics Hardcover – January 1, 1970 by Herbert H. Sanders (Author) Kodansha Publishers “NERIKOMI” is not mentioned in it. Colorants in general were available more broadly after WWII due to the production and trade of colorants. The Marshall Plan financed Aida and others to study in America and to have work experience in companies that were not damaged by war. The low cost of colorants contributed to the quick "contemporary" rebuilding of Japan and allowed the quick production of colored tiles which were used in the interiors and exteriors of many buildings with low skilled labor in the factories only sorting single color tiles. Japanese companies then collaborated with designers like Aida and developed other ways to use color in products and large architectural installations. The artists and designers who collaborated with companies like Inax, started using inlaid colored clay for direction tiles in the streets and metro and other public places as well as in their studios. Examples of this are in the sidewalks in the Sakae area of Nagoya and at Tokyo Disneyland and some metro stations. Exterior building tiles in colors and tile floors in bathrooms were general rebuilding materials. All these factors contributed the development of studio artists/craftsmen and their access to and use of color materials which had an effect on the development of laminated colored clay in Japan. Have a look at Matsui Kousei who called his laminated colored clay work "neriage". I will not go into the cultural "why" background in this post. https://www.daiichiarts.com/artists/320-matsui-kosei/works

Dorothy Feibleman If you want to use the above information, ask me first and please quote the whole thing and reference me. I wrote most of the material that is still left on Wikipedia including introducing the information about the term Nerikomi which was Aida’s personal term he coined for his contemporary laminated colored clay work. Someone else edited some interesting information I included about forgeries of ancient examples of laminated clay objects.

根源 展示 ジェームズ・メイキンス, ドロシー・ファイブルマン, レイ ホラチェック Cera ギャラリー 2024-09-13~09-23