Jin Nanami design duo of Okura Naomi and Yamamoto Shizuko use brilliantly woven textile treasures from Kyoto’s Nishijin weaving district to create their original line of high-fashion, one-of-a-kind handbags. The tradition behind Japanese textiles goes back 1300 years.

The quality, intricacy of design and beauty of this particular kind of Japanese fabric, woven to be used as obi (wide belt for kimono), is legendary throughout the world. In order to weave such complicated, 3 dimensional woven pieces, professional weavers train for up to 10 years.

For the past 13 years, Naomi-san and Shizuko-san have been creating their handbags and other accessories with the Nishijin fabrics. Many of the obi are woven with pure gold. Gold leaf is first glued to handmade Japanese washi paper, then sliced into very narrow strips. The strips are then used as the weft on looms or they are wrapped around silk thread, then used either as warp or weft.

Jin Nanami bags are unusually light weight because both the exterior and interior are made from silk. These finely crafted bags go well with both Japanese kimono and western clothes.

Questions regarding these stunning, originally designed bags can be sent directly to the artists at the following address: shizuko.yamamoto@jin-nanami.com

I stayed at one of the many temple lodges and ate meticulously prepared and presented multi-course vegan shojin ryori cuisine, served on carefully combined lacquer ware, stoneware and fine porcelain dishes. I attended the hour long 6:00am service where seven monks chanted sacred sutras to the beat of a wooden drum, a large bronze bell and brass cymbals.

Kukai (Kobo Daishi) was the founder of the monastery at Koyasan as well as the founder of Japan’s esoteric Buddhist sect, Shingon. A great calligrapher, civil engineer, inventor, mystic and linguist, Kukai traveled to Chang-an, the great capital of Tang Dynasty China, around the year 800 AD. He is credited with being the first person to combine two great tantric Buddhist traditions into one cohesive system. Shortly after he returned to Japan, he founded the monastery on Koyasan, which continues today as a center of Buddhist practice. Kukai predates Tibetan Tantric Buddhist founder Marpa, by about 200 years.

A highlight of my visit was a stroll under giant ancient snow covered cedars, passing the family graves of some of Japan’s most historical figures—shogun, daimyo feudal lords, samurai, writers, poets, artists and captains of industry, on a 2 km. route leading to the temple at Okunoin, the resting place of Kukai lit by hundreds of lamps shining soft amber lights. Slowly burning in the quiet temple hall was the subtly sweet fragrance of pure sandalwood incense.

There is a legend at Koyasan that Kukai actually never died, but sits to this day in profound meditation, in a special chamber, deep within Okunoin.

On a recent stay at James Turrel’s House of Light in the northern city of Tokamachi, during a conversation with a Canadian artist about the viewing of art, Nakamura-san said, “Westerners look at objects from a single, direct perspective. Traditionally, Japanese look at objects from two perspectives: one direct and the other from a more neutral place, from another angle, as if viewing from outside the body. As a person who crafts objects, I look at them from still another perspective, asking myself how other people will see them.”

Nakamura-san is a 3rd generation potter, as are his older and younger brothers. His work is collected world-wide and is in the permanent collection of the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art. He is represented in the U.S., in Manhattan, by Joan B. Mirviss, Ltd. In addition to his work in ceramics, with architect Naito Hiroshi, he collaborated in the design of his three-story house located in an older neighborhood of Kanazawa, as well as River Retreat Garaku, a contemporary Japanese hot spring ryokan, near Toyama.

© Photos by Helen Hasenfeld

Akiyama, located in a quiet, residential neighborhood in northern Kyoto, is a contemporary itamae restaurant that serves innovative Kyoto cuisine, prepared at a counter, in front of guests. A few years ago, Ibata Shotei-sensei introduced me to the just-opened restaurant and its chef, Akiyama, his calligraphy student. Chef Akiyama had come from the legendary Kitcho restaurant, probably the most famous kaiseki restaurant in Japan.

Everyday, for lunch and dinner seatings, Akiyama and his two assistants, in white chef pants, jackets, shirts and hats, and black neckties, stand behind the thick, gleaming, reddish-brown wooden counter.

SB: You opened a few years ago, and there is now quite a waiting list to get a reservation. You have been featured in magazines around Japan. Things are looking very promising for Akiyama!

AK: Although I am really relieved and happy, because I must continue to maintain this level of creativity and quality, I worry a lot. (laughing)

SB: Japanese food looks deceivingly simple to prepare.

AK: As a boy, I always liked making things, including preparing food. I went to culinary school after high school and then went to work at Kitcho. Some people think that we simply slice fish, and it’s ready. In a sense that may be true, but to make it all taste and look really good takes a lot of very detailed work.

SB: I’ve become spoiled eating here. It is like eating art.

AK: Like most people who apprentice at famous restaurants, I had a dream of some day having my own place. When I turned 30, after about 10 years at Kitcho, I began to think that I was ready. My wife and I were told that this house was going to be available. We all pitched in—painting, covering the walls with washi paper, creating the dining bar, building the garden.

SB: The place is really stunning–simple, natural materials, very little ornamentation and no clutter.

AK: Maybe, we err on the side of being too simple, too minimal. I think that a restaurant is like an ikebana arrangement. The food is the “flowers.” The room is the “container.”

Japanlivingarts.com: In Kaiseki, the presentation is as important as the food being served. First, to showcase each seasonally-changing creation, the right dish must be chosen for shape, color, texture and size, as well as how it balances with each of the other dishes used. Though it is ok to mix stoneware and porcelain, pieces must be sufficiently different from one another to provide contrast, while staying within the overall flow of the meal. Utensils made from wood, bamboo, lacquer, iron and glass may also be included. Next, the way the food is placed on/in each dish is an art, in itself. Finally, since all food preparation is done in front of the customers, the efficient, graceful, finely honed movements of the experienced “artist/ chef” are an important part of the dining experience. Unlike the entertainer chefs of Japanese teppan steak houses in the U.S., the itamae chef is a master of efficient, beautiful, yet minimal movements.

AK: A typical meal contains many courses. We change our lunch menu about once a month. Sometimes we change the dinner menu from one day to the next, but at other times we don’t change for a week. It really depends on what is available and delicious that day. The vegetables are very good in this area of Northern Kyoto, so I often buy directly from the farmers.
Because Kyo-cuisine is based on so many different ingredients, and those ingredients change with the seasons, creating different menus that appeal to both the eye and the palette is always interesting—but I’m a worrier.

Although a frequently changing menu affords opportunities for experimentation and creativity, it is very hard work. I begin at 7 or 8 in the morning and finish at about 10 or 11 at night. I do have a little bit of time off between lunch and dinner, but I’m usually so concerned about getting things ready for dinner that I don’t rest very much.

My training with the second generation proprietor of Kitcho was very valuable. I’m really indebted to him for his guidance. He didn’t always tell me that everything I made was delicious. I can remember each of the times he gave me a good course correction.

Of course, even though I want to present my own distinctive flavor, since I did train at Kitcho for many years, I have brought the Kitcho sensibility with me to a certain extent. My food might be known as having a Kitcho influence. This makes me very happy and flattered to have people recognize me in that way. It is also a tribute to Kitcho.

Some people may think they, themselves, can do anything they want in life, but after working to put this business together, it became very clear to me that I couldn’t have done anything without the work and support of my staff and my family. All together, we make this possible.

Since this interview, Akiyama has been awarded one star by Michelin.

One never tires of sukiya colors. Best seen when the sky is overcast, or by the moonlight or candlelight, they nourish us quietly and deeply.

Says Gunter Nitschke in his book, From Shinto to Ando, Studies in Architectural Anthropology in Japan, “In contrast to the vastness of the open sky reflected in the pond, the interior of the hall under the convex ceiling (the bottom of the pond) is kept enclosed and dim. Natural light comes through a light room from due west.

At sunset, the reddish décor of the sanctuary is brilliantly deepened, heightening the suggestions that one is in the womb.

Born and raised in Kyoto, the 40 year-old artist worked at L’ENAD de Limogesa as an Artist in Residence supported by scholarship of the French Government in the late 1990’s. Her work is shown at the Joan B. Mirviss Ltd. gallery in New York. Sakurai-san focuses on white porcelain, creating both functional and non-functional pieces. Writes Mirviss of Sakurai-san’s work: “These dramatic objects engage the viewer by juxtaposing light and shadow, and challenging the perception of interior and exterior spaces. Sakurai’s stark white porcelain forms capture the simple beauty of light and shadow.”

On a visit later that year to Ogawa-san’s studio, I got to see the amazing breadth of his work.  Though he comes from a multi-generational family of potters working in traditional Kyoto-style porcelain, Ogawa-san’s work is both delicate and bold and very original.  His bowls sit on tiny bases and seem to float above the table.  His meticulous, repeated firings produce multi-surfaced pieces such as rich celadon with a black, rough-textured underside, or eggshell white porcelain striped with highly innovative bands of beaded, silver or gold contrasting with a rough textured underside with a raised, geometric pattern of bumps.

His cutting edge, paper thin, asymmetrical tea bowls and sake flasks are particularly exciting.  It is amazing how well his highly refined works blend so beautifully when placed together with rough-hewn stoneware on our dinner table.

Nihonga is a fascinating medium with strong roots in traditional Japanese painting and some western influence. Its development into a modern Japanese art form came about shortly after Japan opened up to the world following nearly 250 years of self-imposed isolation, in the 1800s, through the influence of art critics, such as Okakura Tenshin and Ernest Fenollosa. At a time of extraordinary fascination with western art by the Japanese, the concept of Nihonga was brought forward as a way of focusing attention on overshadowed traditional Japanese art. However, Nihonga was different from pre-modern Japanese painting in the breadth of the subjects portrayed. It also combined previously separate styles of Japanese painting, such as Kano and Rimpa, and incorporated western perspective, among other techniques.

Allan West discovered Nihonga during graduate school at the Tokyo University of Fine Arts, located just around the corner from what is now his studio. After receiving an MFA in Japanese painting, he set up his studio in Japan, and has worked here, ever since. Allan’s innovative Nihonga is shown and collected throughout the world.