01/08/2025
Hooray for HIKOBAE
This beautiful publication arrived in the mail today.
A couple of weeks ago, I received a lovely email from an old TWTT friend, Gaspard. I met Gaspard through my TWTT online project, during the COVID19 pandemic. He was introduced to my project through mutual friend, David Cheek, and fast became a regular attendee in the TWTT Zoom until he left Japan to return to the Czech Republic.
I was able to return to Japan just prior to their borders re-opening to the hordes of tourists thanks to Sake Samurai in 2022. Sadly, I arrived just after Gaspard had left to head back to his homeland.
Whilst in Tokyo, in 2022, attending a beautiful evening of sake and celebration at JSS, organised by Justin Potts, Cindy Bissig, the Sake on Air team and other TWTT members, Gaspard’s wife presented me with a bundle of prints from Gaspard’s original brainchild for this project, ‘IOGI’.
I was so impressed by the illustrations, and the essence and emotion captured within them. Gaspard had already told me his vision for this project and of course, I was even more drawn in by the fact that one of the stories was based on the art of sake brewing at Terada Honke in Chiba Prefecture - a brewery that produces some of the most unique and delicious sake that I have ever enjoyed - and is available in Australia via for anyone interested.
In his recent email, Gaspard mentioned that since we were last in touch, not only had he finally managed to have his initial vision/project published - but in that time, had also created a second volume, called Hikobae, with the same team of artists.
One of the stories in this new publication is based on Aichi based potter, Teppei Terada - who was one of the guests featured in ‘Meet the Artisan’, a sister ‘online’ project of TWTT - made possible by my good friend Robert Yellin. In his email, Gaspard thanked TWTT for connecting him to Teppei Terada, and what made me smile even more, was that he sent me some photos of his recent visits with some of his team to Terada Honke and Teppei Terada’s studio.
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