| | Takashi Nakazato was born as the fifth son in 1937 in Karatsu, Saga Prefecture, into a family with an extremely long history of participation in creative pottery work. Takashi's father, Taroemon Nakazato, was the twelfth of a long line of master potters in the Nakazato family. In Japan, the most honored occupations enjoyed special patronage and protection by the feudal lords and shoguns, and when such a trade was passed on from father to child, custom required that the child inheriting the trade assume not only the surname but even the unmodified given name of the father. The Nakazato family were patronized, as distinguished potters, by the successive feudal lords of Karatsu, and therefore the custom of inheriting both the family and given name was observed. At present, the eldest brother of Takashi Nakazato is the thirteenth to bear the given name Taroemon. Reckoning from the time of the first Taroemon, the Nakazato family now boasts an unbroken lineage of master potters extending over a period of some three hundred years. read more: http://www.yoyokaku.com/Nakazato.htm |