Tom Cannon Bio
Tom was born in New York City on the evening of May 7, 1950 when the Ringling Brothers, Barnum and Bailey Circus was leaving town. He was initially exposed to clay when his mother started taking pottery lessons during his pre-school years. He would often attend classes with her and was allowed to delight in clay. He still recalls playing with the Leach treadle wheels and making pinch pots. A few years later, his mother set up her own pottery studio, and later Tom often accompanied her on deliveries to galleries in New York City where she sold her work. Tom’s father was an art director in Manhattan and weekend family excursions to museums and art galleries were the norm. These early experiences greatly influenced his career choice.
Tom graduated from high school in Connecticut, and went on to attend the University of Colorado where he graduated with a degree in International Affairs. After serving as a Volunteer in Service to America for one year, building homes for low-income families in Utah, he was able to fulfill a longtime ambition to visit Japan. In January 1975, he started taking pottery lessons in Kyoto. Although originally intended only as recreation, he was soon captivated by the clay medium. After an extensive search for an apprenticeship, he was privileged to be accepted by master potter, Yasuteru Miura. He studied under Miura Sensei in his studio outside Kyoto for two years.
At the end of his apprenticeship, his teacher granted him the honor of exhibiting his work at the Yamaki Gallery in Kitahama, Osaka. In April 1977, Tom left Japan and traveled through Southeast Asia and India for five months, researching traditional pottery techniques before arriving in England where his goal was to meet Bernard Leach, the British potter, who spent years in Japan and devoted himself to promoting pottery as a combination of Western and Eastern philosophies and art. Leach was ninety years old and compiling his memoirs, but was unable to do any studio work because he was blind. Tom remembers how very gracious he was. Another pilgrimage, a year earlier, led him to Mashiko, north of Tokyo, where he met Leach’s lifelong friend, and Living National Treasure, Hamada Shoji.
In 1978 he returned to the University of Colorado to study ceramics with Betty Woodman and Tom Potter. By 1979, Tom had built his own kiln and studio in Boulder, Colorado. He was eager to learn more about Japanese pottery making, and in 1981, the opportunity to return to Japan presented itself. For a year he worked in Shimane, a remote prefecture along the Japan Sea, under Haruo Shimada, a remarkable folk craft potter who threw pots that were over six feet tall! In 1982 Tom went to Tanba, a mountainous region west of Kyoto with a ceramic history stretching back 800 years. Here he worked with Maaski Shibata, mingei (folk craft) potter extraordinaire, and former student of Kawai Kanjiro, one of Japan’s greatest ceramic artists of the twentieth century. This makes Tom a lineage holder of the Kawai Kanjiro tradition. Tom built his own studio and wood-fired kiln in Tamba, Sasayama an old feudal castle town.
For the next eleven years he exhibited and sold his work at the most prestigious venues throughout Japan, which included the art galleries at the Takashimaya Department Stores in Tokyo, Yokohama, Osaka, and Kyoto. He was accepted three times into the Japanese National Exhibition of Crafts (Kokuten), a highly selective, juried show of crafts. Tom’s work is in the Ohara Museum of Art in Kobe and numerous private collections. He has frequently appeared on television and in magazine and newspaper articles throughout Japan, and the United States. Tom derives inspiration for his work from many sources, including Chinese bronzes, Japanese ceremonial earthenware (Jomon pottery), Bronze Age bells (dotaku), and having been an assistant to Betty Woodman in her studio in Boulder. He left Japan in April 1993, but frequently returns to exhibit and sell his work and renew his appreciation of Japanese aesthetics. His last one-man show in Japan was in the art gallery of the Kobe Daimaru Department Store that has been in business since the 1600’s. Tom’s studio is in Boulder where he works alone, living between countries, cultures, and traditions. At the urging of Gallery East owner, Solveig Lark, in Loveland, Colorado, Tom started casting some of his ceramics in bronze several years ago. This is a natural progression of his ceramic work, and his long time influences from Chinese and Japanese bronzes. He is excited to imbue the organic qualities of his ceramics with the enduring qualities of bronze. He is looking forward to the challenges of casting progressively larger vessels, fountains, and eventually monuments.