Peter Hamann

Peter Hamann was born in 1956 in Basset, Nebraska. He attended a workshop under Warren McKenzie and Jack Troy from Bethany College in the summer of 1977.  He took residency in Sasayama, Japan in 1982, where his passion for Japanese culture led him to study Yabunouchi-style tea ceremony under Master Chikuyuu Fukuda (Zuichikuan) from 1988 to present. Peter then received a Certificate of Graduation from the Tekisui Museum in Ashiya, Japan in 1988, which was a full-time, two year course in Ceramics.  Later in 2010, Peter obtained his license to teach ceremonial tea techniques and in 2015, Peter gained Japanese citizenship, and took the Japanese name of ‘Sougen Itani.’ 
“I have always had an inclination toward the vessel and have been heavily influenced by the Japanese tea ceremony. The appreciation and even respect it teaches for objects of quality is an important aspect underlying traditional Japanese society.” He speaks philosophically and questions so much of what is presently happening in the world “It is so refreshingly remote in nature from the throw-away society we live in today. It excites me to think that possibly, some hundred of years in the future, a few of the pieces that I have made will still be used with even more respect for the time that has passed since their creation.”