Round a corner in a small Missouri river town and you don’t expect to find a room full of museum-quality porcelain. That’s the surprise of Shirahaze Gallery, at 200 Second Street in Rocheport — a working ceramics studio and gallery that’s easy to walk past and worth the stop.
The work is all one artist’s: Yukari Kashihara, who was born in Osaka, Japan, and earned a Master of Fine Arts in ceramics from the University of Missouri-Columbia in 2003. Her pieces are wheel-thrown porcelain, hand-painted with slip, decorated with colored underglaze, and high-fired — each one one-of-a-kind. You don’t need to know a thing about ceramics to appreciate them; the space has good light and room to breathe, and the work rewards a slow look.
Shirahaze fits Rocheport’s habit of taking art seriously without taking itself too seriously. In a town of a few hundred people, alongside the other galleries and studios, it’s a genuine reason to route a wine-country or Katy Trail day through Second Street.
One practical note: the gallery keeps limited weekend hours — Friday and Sunday 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., Saturday 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. — and closes each summer, early July into late August, so check before you go. Current hours and work are on the gallery’s own site: shirahaze.com.