Kagoshima Culture Craft Village is located on a western hill of Kagoshima Ryutsu Danchi. It is near Kagoshima Jitsugyo High School. It is a quiet place, but there is a regular bus from Kagoshima Chuo Station to this place. It takes about 15 minutes via Kagoshima Ryutsu Danchi from Kagoshima IC by car.
There is a Pottery Atelier for making potteries, a Woodcraft Atelier for making woodcrafts or bamboo crafts, and a Free Use Atelier for making handcrafts.

Making pottery is the most popular thing to do here. They have facilities, tools and clay, so you don’t need to bring anything.
The fee is attractive, too. The facility rental fee is 200 yen per adult and 100 yen per student (up to high school student). The clay costs 200 yen (1kg). It is all you need to pay. You can make up to three works.

This is the reception.
It is placed in the Pottery Atelier, the inner most building of the place.
When you sign in, you need to choose if you want to come again for glazing (in this case, you need to visit the place three times), or you simply leave everything else to the staff and come to pick up your completed pottery.
The fee is the same whichever you choose. You only need to pay for the facility rental fee and the clay.

They lend out the tool sets for free.

Some machines such as electric wheels and the machine on which you make the clay flat are also available to use. An instructor is stationed there every day, so if you want to ask something, she can give you some advice.

By working with clay, molding the shape……, and just getting into making the pottery, you can forget all about time.

The photo above is works by a high school student who had tried making pottery twice or three times.

These are the works which were made on this day here. There are a range of works from cute ones by children to works that outdo professionals.

The sheets under each work show the name of the creator, his/her address and his/her phone number. The drawings of the works are also on the paper, so that people in charge can tell which person made which works.

If you have chosen the glazing course, you need to come again, and you glaze the pottery with your favorite color. Phoning the reception to confirm if your works are biscuit-fired is recommended before you visit the place again.

Color samples of glaze.

If you have chosen to leave everything else, you just need to make a phone call to the reception to confirm if your works are completed before picking up the works at the Atelier.

The taste of food on your own pottery must be particularly good.

Now, if you want to make things at the Woodcraft Atelier, you need to bring materials such as wood or bamboo. The tools you need for doing woodwork or bamboo work such as saws, hummers, hatchet and electric tools etc. are fully provided. You can use the Atelier every day. The instructor is in only on Saturdays, Sundays and national holidays, so if you want some advice coming on these days is recommended.

The Free Use Atelier is for both individual use and group use. You can try making cloisonné ware, pressed flower, stained glass, plant dyed materials and Thor paint.

 Some courses are held here at Kagoshima Culture Craft Village such as “Experience Electric Potter’s Wheel”, “Making Small Articles with Cotton” and “Mingei (folk art) Style Furniture”. Most of them are half day courses.

“Making Kadomatsu (New Year’s Pine Decoration) Course” was held at the end of last year. This course is so popular that the participants are selected by lottery.

Materials and tools are provided on each table.

The lecturer went into a wood many times to gather materials. There are slits in the bamboo to make it easier for participants to make Kadomatsu. The work on the left in the picture above is the sample.

Participants cut the bamboo, make holes in them with a hatchet, a saw and a drill. The lecturer explains and helps beginners.

The picture above is the completed work.

The plants and the white plates which have letters on are also provided and each participant could design their works as they like.

The participation fee for this course was 500 yen including the materials.

If you are interested in the courses, check the newsletter called “Shimin-no Hiroba” from the city. The city delivers it to each house in Kagoshima city.
The courses and the way to apply are on the newsletter.
*The newsletter is in Japanese only.

“Shimin-no Hiroba” is available on the Kagoshima City Homepage, too. (The information about the courses is from the link under the calendar on the right side of the home page.)

It is still very cold, and tempting to stay inside, but if you go out and enjoy making things you’ll find it worthwhile.

The details about the facility are here.

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