Appreciating this Raku Keinyū (formerly known as Kichizaemon XI) owned by tea master Yuki Okamoto (@ukiukichachacha ) during a tea session hosted at Oxford's Trinity College organised by Prof Dr Stefano Evangelista and Akiko Yamanaka @akkoxford .
Thank you for inviting me! 🍵
#chanoyu
And of course @Nigo ’s tea bowls were my favourite part. Hope to be able to drink tea in them one day.
What’s impressive is how he achieved proficiency in so many different styles: Raku, Karatsu, Mishima, Hagi…
‘@Nigo - From Japan with Love’ at the @designmuseum
Impressive, detailed and well curated. The preview was packed so I half visited the exhibition and half caught up with old and new friends from the design community.
Will return to have a proper visit. Who wants to come with me?
Milan Design Week nearly swallowed me whole. I spent most of the past two weeks at Palazzo Citterio for our own exhibition, 'When Apricots Blossom' (@uzbekistanmdw ).
One exception was a bowl of tea at Theaster Gates' 'Chawan Cabinet' at Prada Home on Via Montenapoleone.
The installation featured chawan, yunomi and guinomi by Gates, Yuichi Hirano and Koichi Ohara (Tokoname), Taira Kuroki (Kyoto) and Shion Tabata (Karuizawa).
The private tea room was lined with Hosoo textiles, a kakejiku by Rengetsu, and matcha from Horii Shichimeien's current harvest. As the Eameses would put it, the details are the product.
Not a single bowl of matcha the entire week. In a city that runs on espresso, that quiet room felt like coming up for air.
I didn't buy one of the chawan, the moment wasn't right, but handling them was enough. And I'll take inspiration from Gates' use of Peli cases as chabako for my own travelling kit.
@theastergates@prada@hosoo_official@horiishichimeien
For some time I've been wanting a small cha he (茶荷), a vessel used to measure and present dry tea leaves before brewing. It's especially useful for transferring tea into a small teapot or gaiwan.
Instead of buying one, I made it from Japanese susudake (煤竹), soot bamboo. I had a few lengths left over from my chashaku carving practice. I looked at examples online, found a reference I liked, then got onto the sawing and carving. Once I was happy with the shape, I finished it with light sanding and camellia oil.
Here you see it paired with a wooden tea pick, or cha zhen (茶針) in Chinese, chahari in Japanese, that I made last month.
In the last photo you'll see my beautiful tool roll by @paynterjacket .
Until not long ago I was reticent to call myself a "collector". The word felt like it belonged to someone else.
But I am one. And some objects dissolve the separation between user and collector entirely, like the water dropper, suiteki (水滴) in Japanese. They bring a silent joy to a calligrapher’s desk.
If I collect suiteki it’s not just because they are convenient for getting the right amount of water on the ink stone when I’m grinding the ink, but because they make me feel as happy as an otter with a fancy pebble.
New issue of The Craftsman Newsletter, link in bio.
#JapaneseCraft #Suiteki #Collecting
The House of Beautiful Business (@houseofbeautifulbusiness ) turns 10 and they’re hosting the ‘World Beautiful Business Forum’ in Athens, May 7–10, with five main-stage acts inspired by Greek drama.
I’ve been invited to speak, which closes a circle as back in 2004 I helped launch the ‘World Business Forum’ internationally (different company, beauty was not a feature of the programme) and ran the Italian edition in Milan.
Full programme and tickets: /
🍋🍋🍋
Today the doors open at Collect Art Fair 2026 (@collectartfair ), and I'll be there with something I've been quietly working on for a while.
Together with Mayumi Tachikawa (@mayumi_wajoy ), I've been helping bring WAJOY's international debut to Somerset House (@somersethouse ) with five artists from Ishikawa Prefecture working with urushi, a material I've grown to love.
Ken Noguchi, Reia Momose, Junichi Hakose, Yuki Nakamura, and Tomonori Yamasaki each work with urushi and materials like gold leaf, seashell and hemp to create objects that embrace fragility, time, and reconstruction through slow processes.
The results are beautiful and unlike most things you'll see at the fair.
Come find us at @wajoy_japan in the East Wing, E14.
Somerset House, London
26 Feb – 1 Mar 2026
Photos 1-7 by me, 2-6 by Akira Yuasa
#collect2026
#urushi
If I start a boy band it will be called ‘Gian and the Shokunins’ :)
Here with Shuji, Keigo and Taka during my last visit to Shuji’s workshop in Shiga Prefecture.
🎶🎸🥁🕺🏻🕺🏻🕺🏻🕺🏻🪈🎺🎶
Glimpses of Shuji Nakagawa’s workshop in Shiga Prefecture from my visit last November.
I wrote about my woodworking experience there in @thecraftsmannewsletter , ‘What Wood Wants: Correspondence With Shuji Nakagawa’.
Link in bio.
#japanesecrafts #shokunin #woodworking
