A few years ago, in a bookshop near the British Museum, I found a small book of drawings and paintings by the Japanese potter Kanjiro Kawai.  My “Kawai Drawings” are based on tracings from reproductions of his worksheets.  On these sheets, themes and variations for all kinds of pots are crammed together on a single page, which is deeply creased from having been folded over so many times.

Kawai was born in 1890.  He played an important part in the revival of interest in folk art in Japan.  With Soetsu Yanagi and Shoji Hamada, he started the Japanese Craft Society, the Mingei-Kai, in 1926.  I have not, as yet, been able to find much about Kawai written in English.  One favourite quote, however, comes from Bernard Leach’s ‘A Potter’s Book.’

“ A distinguished Japanese potter, Mr Kawai of Kyoto, when asked how people are to recognise good work, answered simply, ‘With their bodies.’ "