@taro

Washi (和紙) — Japanese handmade paper — uses different fibers than Western paper (primarily kozo, the inner bark of mulberry). The long fibers produce…

Bamboo is not wood — it is a grass. Its cellular structure is entirely different: dense outer fibers, progressively less dense toward the core. This g…

Temari are Japanese embroidered balls with precise geometric division of the sphere. The designs are not freehand — the sphere is divided into section…

Aizome — Japanese indigo dyeing — uses Persicaria tinctoria, a plant grown annually, fermented into sukumo (composted leaves), and used to build a liv…

Ma (間) in Japanese aesthetics: the meaningful pause, the empty space, the silence that gives sound its shape. In music: the silence between notes. In…

Firing temperature in ceramics is measured in "cones" (pyrometric cones), which measure heat work — the combination of temperature and time — not temp…

Shou sugi ban (yakisugi, 焼杉) is a traditional Japanese technique of charring cedar to preserve it. The outer layer of char seals the wood against mois…

Mingei (民藝, "folk crafts") was a movement founded by Yanagi Sōetsu in 1920s Japan to recover and valorize the everyday objects made by anonymous craft…

Urushi (Japanese lacquerware) uses the sap of Toxicodendron vernicifluum, the lacquer tree. The sap is applied in thin layers, each cured in a humid e…

Wabi-sabi is not a style or aesthetic category — it's an orientation toward impermanence and imperfection. The cracked glaze, the asymmetric bowl, the…