Reflections on craft in Japan

When I visited Aizu Wakamatsu in Fukushima Prefecture recently, I heard a compelling story. Locals would apparently boil eggs in the cooling water of an agricultural tilling machine which heats up when the machine is running. There was even a special wire mesh made for holding the eggs. Boiling eggs with a tilling machine may sound unusual, but it seems that it was also common practice to harness the rotation of the engine to power farming tools that were traditionally hand-cranked, such as winnowing machines*. In fact, belts just for this purpose are apparently still being sold today.

Hearing this story made me think: wasn’t mingei (“folk craft”) originally something like this—a way of freely repurposing tools for different uses? There are people who deftly handle their tools without being bound by conventional thinking, and tools that reveal new aspects of themselves when given new roles—I was inspired imagining the intersection between the two. This led me to think that perhaps the phrase “not made, but born” referred to exactly this kind of exchange between people and things.

The advocates of the Mingei movement all spoke of the importance of the concept of “not made, but born.” Yanagi Sōetsu said, “the Ido** tea bowl is a vessel that was born, not one that was made.” Hamada Shōji remarked, “in pottery too, I want pieces that feel more as if they were born rather than made.” Yanagi Sōri stated, “true beauty is something that is born, not something that is created.” Kawai Kanjirō, praising thatched farmhouses, expressed it this way: “rather than being built on the land, I would say that each has grown up from within the land itself.”

What they all valued, first and foremost, was not a reliance on the self, but a reliance on the power of the other, the creative force that arises from the workings of locality, tradition, material and climate, rather than being placed solely in the hands of the maker. At the same time, this perspective implied seeing tools as though they were living beings. A tiller that boils eggs seems somehow more “alive” than when it is only ploughing fields.

How might we restore such joyful exchanges between people and things in contemporary society? In answering this question, the clue may lie in focusing not on making, but on those crafts born of the people.

Design

If we consider the stone axe to be humanity’s first tool, then the very condition that makes us human can be called “design.” What matters is not only the act of making things, but the will to understand and shape our environment through them. To take root in a place requires a process of mutual adaptation. This is the primal landscape of design.

Civilization and Culture

Civilization transcends culture, while culture remains bound to place. The modern era has been characterized by the aspiration to be civilized and design is no exception. The very tools that civilization in recent decades has given us – the internet and social media—have, however, made evident a simple truth: the world is still a collection of countless distinct cultures. We now live in an age where we confront culture through civilization. What then, is modern design within culture? In spaces and bodies shaped by climate and landscape, what exactly is the modernity that resides there?

Returning to the Unformed

Within the interactions between makers, users, and their daily lives, countless ideas are filtered and crystallized into kata (patterns) and katachi (forms). In Japan, boundaries blur. Tanizaki Jun’ichirō, in In Praise of Shadows (1933), recalls eating yōkan (sweet bean jelly) in a darkened room. Through the experience of tasting the yōkan in the darkness, one too dissolves into that time and place. To return, once more, to what was once divided is to return to the unformed, an ambient state of being.

The objects which comprise hyakkō—a myriad of makers and their crafts—are tools of many kinds. Perhaps they embody the process through which we adapt to life.

This summer, just as I was leaving an urushi lacquer workshop in Kiso in Nagano Prefecture, I was invited to stay for tea by the mother of the family. On a low round table were rice cakes wrapped in magnolia leaves, edamame, cherry tomatoes pickled in sweet vinegar, and watermelon, served with cold barley tea. The woman told me that after finishing middle school, she had begun working in her family’s urushi lacquer workshop, before marrying an artisan from Matsumoto, who became one of the first to establish himself as an independent craftsman in Kiso. Today, their son has taken over the workshop.

When I noticed a partially embroidered rag beside her, she showed it to me, a little embarrassed, saying, “This is my only pleasure.” On a cut piece of towel, she had drawn diamond patterns with a marker and stitched along them rhythmically with red thread. She said she would give these out to local children and friends, adding, “People always tease me about this.”

Just how broad and deep is the term kōgei (“craft”)? It is not only the works of those we call artisans, creators, or makers—those people with the technical skill and creative vision to give form to objects—that should be called “craft.” If we think more widely, we find craft in the everyday things around us, shaped with resourceful ingenuity from the materials at hand.

The folklorist and craftsman Kon Wajirō recognized this. In 1923, while walking through a rural hot-spring town, he encountered tin gas lamps hanging from the eaves of inns and sketched each variation. The locals called these lamps the work of “foolish tinsmiths,” but Kon saw in them something of himself, timid and distanced from the flourishing craft movements in the city. Fully inhabiting the spirit of a “poor, faithful craftsman,” he came to appreciate the depth and richness of craft as a form of expression.

A hundred years have passed since then, and Japanese craftspeople have continually refined their techniques. Yet when I look at such intensely perfected works, I always find myself shrinking back a little. And so, taking a cue from Kon, I would rather turn my eyes toward the unassuming objects of daily life. They often go unnoticed precisely because they cling so closely to life. Even so, I cannot help but feel that within this exhibition space, too, there are works of craft that embody that same breadth and depth.

Among the many definitions of wabi-sabi, there is one expression that stands out: hieta, meaning “cold” or “chilled.”

In the classical world of Noh theatre, there were certain sections of a play where a restrained performance—rather than a dramatic climax—could move an audience profoundly. Such moments were described as “hieta.”

This unusual term emerged during the Muromachi period (c. 1336–1573), when the highest form of beauty was thought to be found in an austere, wintry landscape, rather than spring blossoms or autumnal colors. This was a beauty marked by tension and severity, like a barren field that, just beneath the surface, holds the dormant vitality of spring.

A passage from the time, by the Buddhist poet and priest Shinkei (1406–1475), illustrates this distinct Japanese sensitivity to beauty:

“One should pay attention to the faint and subtle. A single white plum blossom blooming amongst the bamboo, like the moon glimpsed through the clouds, is captivating. But an abundance of blossoms, like a full moon at its brightest, is less moving.”

Another important concept is honka-dori, originally a term from classical poetry. It refers to the practice of borrowing elements from earlier works and weaving them into new creations. In craft as in poetry, fragments of the past are reinterpreted, creating something contemporary while acknowledging what came before. Different generations select different sources and reinterpret them in new ways.

The artists featured in this exhibition stand at the forefront of this long tradition of honka-dori. Their works embody what has been passed down through the generations, including the sensibilities of subtle beauty such as wabi and hieta, yet are reframed for the present. These nuances are not shown overtly but scattered delicately within the “faint and subtle” details of their creations.

If craft is something that changes with time, it mirrors the words of Kamo no Chōmei in his Hōjōki (An Account of My Hut, written in 1212):

“The flow of the river never ceases, and yet the water is never the same.”

In that spirit, let us share in this moment together, to experience how craft lives in our own time. One day, we may look back on this era as a distinct chapter in the story of craft. May the pieces you encounter today remain with you as a quiet witness to this time.