Takayama-Ogawa's early works are often in the form of a teapot and tea bowls, referencing the important tradition of tea ceremonies in Japan. Although in Elaine Levin's Ceramics Monthly article, she mentions, alongside Keiko Fukazawa, that “Both artists admit that they have vigorously resisted the narrow, traditional role of women in Japanese culture, yet the teapot and the tea bowl of the tea ceremony—forms that have an important relation to ceramics tradition, and to women and culture in Japan—have had a significant impact on the work of both.”
