About the Maker
"I don't make perfect things. I make honest things — shaped by hand, fired by intuition, meant to be held and used and loved."
Emi Takahashi grew up between two worlds — her mother's kitchen in Portland, Oregon, where mismatched ceramic bowls held every meal, and her grandmother's house in Tochigi Prefecture, where tea was served in cups that had been in the family for generations.
After studying sculpture at RISD, Emi felt something was missing. Her work was conceptually sharp but emotionally empty. A chance encounter with a Mashiko-ware teabowl at a Brooklyn flea market changed everything. She could feel the maker's hands in the clay. She could see the kiln's breath in the glaze.
Within six months, she had sold her apartment, packed two bags, and moved to Mashiko — the pottery village two hours north of Tokyo where Shōji Hamada had established his legendary workshop nearly a century before.
For three years, Emi apprenticed under master potter Kenji Furukawa. She learned to wedge clay until her arms ached. She learned to read the kiln by the color of the flame. She learned that a pot thrown in thirty seconds carries the knowledge of ten thousand pots before it.
She returned to the Pacific Northwest in 2019 and founded Earth & Kiln — a studio where mingei philosophy meets contemporary life. Every piece is wheel-thrown, hand-glazed, and wood-fired in a kiln she built herself from local brick and Pacific clay.
Mingei — literally "art of the people" — is the belief that true beauty arises from function, humility, and the honest hand of the maker. It's not about perfection. It's about integrity.
Every piece begins with a purpose. A bowl must hold. A cup must warm the hand. Beauty follows naturally from objects made to serve.
The ego of the maker dissolves into the work. No signatures on the front — just the quiet confidence of clay shaped with care and intention.
Local clay. Wood ash glazes. Pigments from stone and earth. The materials speak honestly, and the maker listens.
"The beauty of folk craft is born not of the individual but of the whole — of tradition, of nature, of the countless hands that came before."— Sōetsu Yanagi, The Beauty of Everyday Things
Earth & Kiln operates from a converted hay barn on twelve acres outside Bozeman, Montana. The Bridger Mountains fill the north-facing windows. Elk occasionally wander past the kiln shed at dawn.
The main studio holds two kick wheels — Emi's primary tools — along with a slab roller, a small electric kiln for bisque firing, and shelves upon shelves of drying work. But the heart of the operation is outside: a wood-fired anagama kiln, built over two summers from hand-formed brick, capable of reaching 2,400°F over a continuous three-day firing.
Each firing is an event. Friends and fellow potters take shifts feeding the kiln through the night. The results are never fully predictable — ash lands where it will, flames leave their own marks — and that's exactly the point.
The anagama fires four times per year — once each season. New work is released in the weeks following each firing.
Open studio days are held monthly, April through October. Check the contact page for upcoming dates.
"True beauty is not created. It is discovered in the ordinary — in the grain of wood, the texture of clay, the quiet rhythm of daily use."— Sōetsu Yanagi
Emi's work sits at the intersection of Japanese folk tradition and the raw, open character of the American West. Each piece is a conversation between these two landscapes.
4827 Bridger Canyon Road
Bozeman, MT 59715
Open Studio: First Saturday of each month
April – October, 10am – 4pm
By appointment in winter months