I was in Japan for the month of May 2015. Summer of 2014 my Aunt Esta asked me if I would like to join her on a ceramics trip to Japan. We would be traveling with ten people and our guide would be famed ceramist, Jeff Shapiro. Jeff is an American potter who studied in Japan and, over several decades, has developed very special relationships with artists in Japan. I’m a paper artist and painter. I had not work with clay since I was about 10 years old. Was I interested in clay arts? Maybe not. However, I knew right away that this would be THE trip of a lifetime.