Wada Morihiro has written about this series, titled "Tori Mon/Asuka Mon":

Tori-Mon, Asuka-Mon 鳥文・飛鳥文(1978-1983)At the outset of my work in Kasama, the imperative was to identify a suitable technique for crafting tableware and other items. The challenge lay in reproducing a substantial quantity of San-Mon 杉文 and Un-Ka-Mon 雲花文 patterns, which were already in production.

To address this, I adopted a method involving the application of glaze by covering it with wax, a technique referred to as yusai or glaze painting. The shapes drawn on the glazed surface were imbued with the imagery of birds by my young son, who remarked, "It looks like a bird."

These shapes, now named "Tori-Mon" 鳥文 (bird) patterns, were the creative contributions of my son. While exploring various bird patterns, I started distinguishing transparent clear glaze and black glaze atop the white finish. Subsequently, I applied stripes of colored glaze on both sides of the glaze, connecting the two with a pattern termed Asuka-Mon 飛鳥文, a nomenclature suggested by my wife.

True to my nature, with each new method I devised, the process became increasingly time-consuming and labor-intensive. Consequently, producing a large quantity of both Tori-Mon 鳥文 and Asuka-Mon 飛鳥文 pieces became unfeasible. I now make this less and less. Changes were made to the glazing method, occasionally manifesting in the production of smaller articles. Therefore, the changes became later designs, namely Kan-Mon 函文, Yo-Mon 踊文, and Kikka-Mon 吉花文, which evolved as extensions of the Tori-Mon trend.

鳥文・飛鳥文

笠間での仕事のはじめに、食器等を作るのに適した手法をみつける必要があった。 すでに手がけはじめていた杉文や雲花文は数を作ることが難しかったのである。釉をロウで蓋いながら施け別けてゆく方法を釉彩と名づけて使い出したが、 そこに描き出してゆく形を、 まだ幼かった息子が 「鳥のようだ」 と言った言葉で鳥のイメージを持たせた数種のパターンが順次生まれて来て、 それらをまとめて鳥文ということにした。鳥文を色々手がけているうちに､白化粧の上に透明釉と黒釉を大きく施け別け、その両者を色釉の縞をまとった模様がつなぐという、これまでとは少し違った方法が生まれて来た。

これを飛鳥文と名づけたのは妻であった。私の常なのだが、手法を工夫する毎にどんどん手間が増えることになって来て、 鳥文も飛鳥文も初期の目的から離れ、そう多数作れるものではなくなってしまった。釉彩の方法は、その後も方法を変えながら小物類の制作の折に時々あらわれてくる。 後の函文や踊文、吉花文もこの延長線上にある。

Under Tomimoto Kenkichi’s guidance at Kyoto Art University, all students were supposed to learn from and recreate nature in their work. In Wada’s hands under his tutelage, nature became abstract images. Plants, animals, and natural forces became symbols and decorative elements, often combining into intricate abstract pattern. These patterns often rise from the repetition of abstracted natural form, becoming a unique expression of Wada’s spectacular interpretation of the natural world. He used natural materials as much as possible, including different forms of clay, wax, sand, and slip. He experimented with various colored natural clays that produce a variety of colors after high firing, including grey-green, dark auburn, purple, and navy. These Vessels he inlaid with white slip patterning, allowing the colorful clay to show through the inlaid lines in ever more complicated and intricate processes.

Wada’s work can be found at the Minneapolis Institute of Art; the Mint Museum, Charlotte, North Carolina; the New Orleans Museum of Art; the Newark Museum of Art, New Jersey; the Philadelphia Museum of Art; Faenza International Museum of Ceramics, Italy; Musée National de Céramique, Sèvres, France; Musée National de la Porcelaine Adrien-Dubouché, Limoges, France; the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Musée Tomo, Tokyo; Kure Municipal Museum of Art, Hiroshima; Ogawa Museum of Art, Tokyo; Ibaraki Museum of Modern Art; Tokyo National Museum of Art; and the Tochigi Prefectural Museum of Fine Arts, as well as in numerous private collections.