This book discusses the place of creative village policy in the revitalisation of rural Japan, highlighting how rural Japan is moving from a state of regional extinction to regional rejuvenation. Using the case study of Tamba Sasayama in Hyogo Prefecture, where collective initiatives by local government and the role of the local traditional potters are invested in fostering an aura of creativity in the region, the book examines the complex social relations and the intertwining values of different actors to illustrate how a growing outlook on creativity, rurality, and rural creativity requires a renewed perspective on and of rural Japan. Based on extensive field research, this book will be a valuable resource for students and scholars of Japanese studies, rural studies, and anthropology.

"With this book, you feel you can stop time and savor the rituals of life." --Maira Kalman An immersive journey through the culture and cuisine of one Japanese town, its forest, and its watershed--where ducks are hunted by net, saké is brewed from the purest mountain water, and charcoal is fired in stone kilns--by an American writer and food stylist who spent years working alongside artisans One night, Brooklyn-based artist and food writer Hannah Kirshner received a life-changing invitation to apprentice with a "saké evangelist" in a misty Japanese mountain village called Yamanaka. In a rapidly modernizing Japan, the region--a stronghold of the country's old-fashioned ways--was quickly becoming a destination for chefs and artisans looking to learn about the traditions that have long shaped Japanese culture. Kirshner put on a vest and tie and took her place behind the saké bar. Before long, she met a community of craftspeople, farmers, and foragers--master woodturners, hunters, a paper artist, and a man making charcoal in his nearly abandoned village on the outskirts of town. Kirshner found each craftsperson not only exhibited an extraordinary dedication to their work but their distinct expertise contributed to the fabric of the local culture. Inspired by these masters, she devoted herself to learning how they work and live. Taking readers deep into evergreen forests, terraced rice fields, and smoke-filled workshops, Kirshner captures the centuries-old traditions still alive in Yamanaka. Water, Wood, and Wild Things invites readers to see what goes into making a fine bowl, a cup of tea, or a harvest of rice and introduces the masters who dedicate their lives to this work. Part travelogue, part meditation on the meaning of work, and full of her own beautiful drawings and recipes, Kirshner's refreshing book is an ode to a place and its people, as well as a profound examination of what it means to sustain traditions and find purpose in cultivation and craft.

Articles crafted from lacquer, silk, cotton, paper, ceramics, and iron were central to daily life in early modern Japan. They were powerful carriers of knowledge, sociality, and identity, and their facture was a matter of serious concern among makers and consumers alike. In this innovative study, Christine M. E. Guth offers a holistic framework for appreciating the crafts produced in the city and countryside, by celebrity and unknown makers, between the late sixteenth and mid-nineteenth centuries. Her study throws into relief the confluence of often overlooked forces that contributed to Japan’s diverse, dynamic, and aesthetically sophisticated artifactual culture. By bringing into dialogue key issues such as natural resources and their management, media representations, gender and workshop organization, embodied knowledge, and innovation, she invites readers to think about Japanese crafts as emerging from cooperative yet competitive expressive environments involving both human and nonhuman forces. A focus on the material, sociological, physiological, and technical aspects of making practices adds to our understanding of early modern crafts by revealing underlying patterns of thought and action within the wider culture of the times.

A stunning photographic survey of Japan’s most ingenious contemporary artisans. Generations of artisans in Japan have forged and refined their crafts to become the envy of the world. Each of the country’s regions are renowned for specific traditions relating to local materials and the natural world in which they are produced. While tourists and design enthusiasts have long acknowledged the unique history and quality of Japanese craftsmanship, very few crafts have made their way outside the country, preventing many from witnessing the quality of Japanese workmanship for themselves. With the aim of sharing these unseen treasures with the wider world, designers Uwe Röttgen and Katharina Zettl set out to find the finest examples of Japanese craftsmanship, traveling around the country to document the makers, their workshops, and the landscapes that influence them. Craftland Japan is the result of this extraordinary journey into the heart of Japanese culture. Featuring twenty-five expert artisans, Craftland Japan reveals the techniques and materials that are used to produce a wide variety of beautiful objects, from porcelain bowls to indigo-dyed fabrics to paper. This book is a celebration of how Japan’s union of craft, design, materiality, and landscape continue to flourish in contemporary interpretation, however much the world around them has changed.

This is the first book to present today's traditional crafts under one cover and the first and only guide to the contemporary craft centers of Japan. A monumental effort seven years in the making, the Japan Crafts Sourcebook catalogs an array of items found throughout the country and discusses their history, background, and contemporary standing. An insightful introduction by Diane Durston delves into the intricacies of Japanese craft and contemplates the future of Japan's ongoing artisan traditions. With over ninety items from all genres - textiles, ceramics, wood, bamboo, lacquer, paper, and metal - and a wealth of illustrations, the Japan Crafts Sourcebook provides the perfect introduction to this cherished but vanishing world, and will prove invaluable for artists, craftspeople, designers, researchers, and lovers of the handmade object everywhere.

This study of Japan's transformation by the economic crises of the 1930s focuses on efforts to overcome the effects of the Great Depression in rural areas, particularly the activities of local activists and Tokyo policymakers. Smith sheds light on how average Japanese responded to problems of modernization and how they re-created the countryside.

Presents a collection of Japanese recipes; discusses the ingredients, techniques, and equipment required for home cooking; and relates the author's experiences living on a farm in Japan for the past twenty-three years.