About Kawatsura Lacoquerware-High quality products fpr everyday use.

Kawatsura lacquerware has a long history. It is said that the tradition began with the lacquering of armor and sheaths for swords around 800 years ago. The end of the Edo Period saw the flourishing of lacquerware for objects such as wooden bowls, small tables, boxes for valuable and precious objects and also the luxurious chinkin and maki-e inlay decorative products. These were traded inside Japan across feudal kingdoms as well as sent overseas, providing much wealth to the sort after master craftsmen. Nowadays, although no where near what it was long ago, the tradition of lacquerware has been quietly maintained in a few select areas of Japan and is a source of income supporting the local economy in rural areas. In Kawatsura, the skills and knowledge of the art have been handed down generations of makers who are careful to protect the tradition of polite and honest manufacturing. It has been decided to make items affordable so that can be used and enjoyed in the everyday and the charm of Kawatsura wares are known and used by a wide range of customers. The characteristic warm colors of Kawatsura lacquer, unlike regular tableware, grows in luster and color with its continued use. A particular trait of Kawatsura ware is also the thickness of the final lacquering making a robust product. Born from simplicity, crafted from wood and then coated with sap from the Sumac tree, as consumers we can have faith that this is a natural product embodying a natural beauty as well as durability and antibacterial qualities. The ultimate charm of lacquerware is the ability to refresh your wares with subsequent lacquering, creating objects that can be used for a lifetime and passed onto future generations. We can feel the joy of using a quality and beautiful product and then passing this product on if we so wish. This is how we think of our Kawatsura lacquerware, a philosophy of product design for our everyday living.

The hand crafting of bare wood.
Our Kawatsura lacquerware is produced from a selection of Beech, Horse chestnut, Onoki and Hinoki woods sourced from the Ou mountain range in Northern Japan. The crafting of the wood is considered over three stages.
1	First, in selecting our material, the stage we call Kidori, we avoid using any imperfect area and the knot of the wood and cut it into roughly sized blocks.
2	We then start to craft the ware, a stage called Arabiki, using a hand saw and turning lathe to create a rough basic shape.
3	We let it air dry for a period of time before boiling it, to remove the astringent in the wood. We then dry smoke it for a period of one month.
4	It is then ready for further manipulation, a stage called Shiagebiki. For our bowls, we attach the roughly carved wood to a wheel and whilst turning, we saw and plane into the desired bowl shape. After this process of carving and shaping and finishing we are ready to start the lacquering process.

 

The lacquering
At first the ware is coated with a basic layer of charcoal and then the sap from the persimmon tree gives it a layer of unrefined varnish.
1	We then coat the object with the first layer of lacquer, a mixture of raw lacquer and charcoal. After that, comes what we call the base layer, which is a layer of pure raw lacquer.
2	The next layer is lacquer is what we call the glue for the future layers of lacquer. This is applied as a thin layer using a cloth. Upon this we add multiple thin layers of different mixtures of lacquer, rice glue and tonoko clay.
3	With this process, the application and polishing over and over of the lacquer comes the skill of the craftsman for it takes a trained and practiced hand to paint the lacquer layer upon layer evenly and smoothly and to create a perfect color, free of the dust that comes with the process. The final layer of lacquer, so called Hananuri, requires a great depth of experience and skill to ensure no lines of the lacquer brush can be seen on the final product. Here the product can be complete if so desired.
4	However our lacquer wares can also become the canvas for additional decoration such as gold inlay (so called Chinkin) or with a brush and gold powder, a design can be painted (so called Maki-e).

The finished product from a slow hand made process of
repeated lacquer that brightens as it ages.

The characteristic of our lacquerware is that the multiple base coating that we insist on create a solid and high quality base. The repeated coating of these thin　layers not only ensures a smoothness to the final product but also results in a warm color of the lacquer. Please look closely at our product for you will find no aberration of lacquer thickness or see a mark of the brushes we use to apply the lacquer. We are proud to be able show you what we can do. As such our product age excessively well so that your continued everyday use you bring out extra luster in the product.
(To the front of photograph is a new wooden bowl, behind this is a wooden bowl that has been used for seven years. )

Contact
For questions about lacquerware, how to purchase, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Akita・Kawatsura Nuri Jujiro

119-3 Odate-shimo-sanno, Kawatsura-cho, Yuzawa City,Akita 012-0105
TEL：0183-42-3576 　FAX：0183-42-4616
Email　info@jujiro.jp