Masaaki Iwasa leads two lives in Izumo, Shimane Prefecture: as head priest of Tokuen Temple, a Rinzai Zen monastery with over three hundred years of history, and as a ceramic artist whose work is inseparable from that practice. Born in Ehime Prefecture in 1979, he spent nearly a decade apprenticing under master potters in Japan before establishing his kiln in Izumo in 2013.

His signature technique, toutai shitsuki (ceramic lacquerware), applies lacquer as an adhesive for metal leaf onto fired ceramic vessels, which are then refired at several hundred degrees. Where the metal adheres and burns away, a landscape emerges on the surface, quiet, unpredictable, and unrepeatable. Each piece develops its own patina over time, shifting in tone and texture with age, a quality he traces to a life spent among ancient temple objects whose gold and silver leaf has grown more beautiful over centuries.