Attractiveness of Japanese traditional industrial arts and crafts

 Japanese traditional arts and crafts are usually very expensive. However, it also means they have the values equivalent to the price shows.

There are many craftsmen who use their own skills to produce those crafts – most of the time each product is hand-made, not using machines like mass-production. There are various skills of making arts and crafts, such as porcelain making, weaving on a loom, fabrics dyeing, chasing, and so many others. Each process of making arts and crafts is manufactured by master craftsmen who have gone through years of apprenticeship and practice, and the products are inspired by those craftsmen.

Of course, all processes are operated based on craftsmen’s years of experience and by their hands. So each product has subtle differences from each other, for example, finish tone in color and in shape. It means each product has its unique “face”. These are the very attractiveness of Japanese traditional arts and crafts.

 However, it is also true that they are so valuable that it takes long time to make a hand-made product by those expert craftsmen, and thus those products are expensive.

In the mean time, there is a market where many people prefer products that are made under mass- production, which are much economical. You can easily find and buy those products all over the world. However, you can say this is the other market for the products of day-to-day use like consumables.

Value in uniqueness is the key word for those arts and crafts, which are different from ordinary mass-manufactured products that totally look the same from each other.

We aim for introducing the true values of hand-made Japanese traditional arts and craft around all over the world.

Written by Yabuuchi

Introducing "Arita Porcelain"

"Arita Porcelain" is one of the most famous Japanese traditional handiwork.
Also it's called "Imari Porcelain". 
There is little difference between them,
but when we say about Arita or Imari, it's same meaning.






I will show how Arita Porcelain is being sold in Japan.


There are many kinds of Arita Porcelain, the very expensive one that have great quality to real cheap one.
Cheap one is usually made by machine, not handiwork.


The one I want to introduce to the world is "REAL Arita Porcelain".
Made by very proficient craftsman.
Those have really beautiful design written by Japanese brush pen, each product is completed by hand.

After they finish making Arita Porcelain, where those products are sold?

Usually, those are sold in exhibition of department store.

 

 

There are many kinds of tableware made of Arita Porcelain,

Plate, Saucer, Mug cup, Sake tumbler, Bowl are famous.

This is atmosphere of Arita Porcelain store.
It's very crowded with so many people!

You may have the chance to drop in at if you see this in Japanese department store.


written by Suzuki

Japanese Craftsmen

Japanese craftsmen produce many kinds of traditional artifacts and crafts. Not only foreign people, but also we, Japanese, are moved by their elaborate works.

“Kyo-yuzen (yuzen dyed-fabrics)” is one of the traditional artifacts that those craftsmen produce. This is a famous, traditional way of dying for fabrics in Kyoto. The making of “Kyo-yuzen” is divided into several parts such as sketching, dying, drawing pictures, etc. And, each process has its own professional craftsman.

These pictures are the scenes of drawing pictures. The cloth is so big that it is used to make a kimono.  The craftsmen keep sitting for a long time to draw complicated pictures. The position where the pictures are drawn is fixed in advance, and it takes two or three weeks to complete a cloth. The whole process needs great concentration and patience.

It also takes very long time to be a true expert of the first rank. Those who want to be a real craftsman are required to start working as apprentice in their youth. Tough and hard studying, working and supporting their masters for years, they will gradually become real craftsmen.

However, because of the diversification of job varieties, less and less young people want to be craftsmen; further, considering the reducing population, the numbers are and will be reducing rapidly in Japan. In the mean time, those craftsmen are getting old, and they are facing serious successor problems everywhere in the crafts industry. It is a true tragedy if those techniques are not succeeded in the next generation and simply lost…

“Convey those precious and a wealth of Japanese traditional culture all over the world” - this is Focus Japan’s role and what we are aiming for.

Written by Yabuuchi