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Japanese Woodworking and Joinery Without Nails
How Japanese carpenters and cabinetmakers join timber with interlocking joints, wedges and pegs, from temple frames to drawers, with little or no metal.
Arts and Crafts
Wood, Bamboo and Metal
Joinery, bamboo work, ironware and other material-based crafts.
Bamboo Craft in Japan: Baskets, Fences and Utensils
How bamboo is split, shaped and plaited in Japan into baskets, garden fences, kitchen tools and tea utensils, and why the plant suits so many uses.
Cloisonne and Decorative Metal Inlay in Japan
How Japanese metalworkers decorated sword fittings, vases and boxes with enamel cells and inlaid wire or sheet, and how the trade changed in the Meiji era.
Dolls, Toys and Wooden Kokeshi: Craft for Children
A look at kokeshi dolls from northern Japan, paper-mache toys and festival dolls, and how regional makers turned children's playthings into lasting crafts.
Hinoki and Other Woods Valued in Japanese Craft
Why Japanese carpenters and craftspeople favor hinoki cypress, sugi cedar, keyaki, paulownia and other woods, and what each is traditionally used for.
Japanese Kitchen Knives: History and Design Ideas
A cultural look at Japanese kitchen knives: single-bevel and double-bevel blades, how shapes follow fish, vegetables and rice, and the link to sword-making.
Kumiko Lattice Work and Decorative Woodwork
How kumiko lattice is made from tiny grooved wooden strips fitted without nails, the patterns it forms, and where it appears in screens and sliding panels.
Nambu Ironware and the Tradition of Cast Iron Kettles
The history of Nambu ironware from Iwate, how cast iron kettles are made, and the difference between tea-ceremony kettles and everyday pouring kettles.
Origami: Paper Folding as Art and Tradition
A short history of origami in Japan, from ceremonial folded paper and gift decoration to the thousand cranes tradition and today's mathematical designs.
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More in arts and crafts
Traditional Crafts Lacquer, paper, pottery, weaving and metalwork. Visual Arts Prints, sculpture, calligraphy, ikebana and more. Performing and Literary Arts Music, dance, film, literature and the geisha tradition. Ceramics and Kilns Regional pottery traditions, glazes and the way kiln towns developed. Painting and Popular Art Ink painting, screens, nihonga and the road to manga and anime. Poetry and Theatre Waka, haiku and the stage arts of noh, kabuki and bunraku.