The Japanese have a saying that calls the ceramics town of Mashiko to mind: daido shoi , "big similarity, little difference". In the eighty years since the legendary Hamada reinvigorated its trade in clay, generations of potters have established their workshops here as they strive to make a name for themselves. Each strikes out to find an individual voice, to offer a ?little difference? in a town of tradition, but what remains at the core of every Mashiko potter's work is that "big similarity" of spirit: a desire to use local materials; to extract as much potential from those materials as one can; and to merge the essences of art and craft, form and function, into a coherent whole. Exhibition: Goldmark Art, Uppingham Oakham, UK (03.-18.06.2017)