Crafting in Japan: Exploring Japanese crafts through studio visits

Crafting in Japan: Exploring Japanese Crafts Through Studio Visits uses beauty and craftsmanship as a springboard to delve deeper into intriguing aspects of traditional Japanese crafts: heritage, cultural history, and science/engineering. The sustainable materials used and the making processes that transform them into works of fine craftsmanship represent the resourcefulness, creativity, and dedication that artisans have displayed through the ages.

The chapters of the book tell the stories of the crafts through studio visits, conversations with artisans in Japanese, and the author's experience living in Japan as a maker and collector of crafts. Each chapter showcases photographs taken at the artisanal workshops to complement the text.

The book also traces a broader narrative. The government is eager to preserve the craft forms because they represent cultural heritage that date back to the classical era. Many artisans are affiliated with studios that were established in the late Edo or Meiji Period, when the domain system of feudal Japan dissolved upon the adoption of the free market system. Perhaps most intriguing of all is how each craft form draws out different aspects of Japan’s rich cultural history despite charting the same timeline.

This is a small paperback.