Valuing the characteristics of wood”Kino Shigoto Juju” is a workshop in Ishinomaki-shi, producing wooden furniture that soothes people’s hearts. Woodcraft artist Hideki Saito states, ”I’m not just making furniture. I want people to know how interesting wood is as a material.” |
Furniture that highlights peopleSaito’s works are not vivid or eye catching, but rather have a gentleness and blend naturally into everyday life. What he aims for is ”furniture that highlights the people”. |
Creating with local woodOf course, it is a business, so calculating cost is very important. However, he also said, ”when we start calculating cost, we might give up on making the product altogether. However, when we go beyond that, we may end up making something very interesting.” He is always trying to have flexibility with his ideas about what kind of furniture he wants to make. A special chair for a leather craftsman when he sits working at a sewing machine. Shaving wood very thin and dyeing it to make colorful strips to be woven together into a chair. He takes up sparks of ideas and carefully produces the designs, and allows them to take shape. As a woodcraft artist, he can’t help saying a word or two when he sees someone cutting down a tree. He’s made many acquaintances this way, and he has started collecting many kinds of wood. It will still be some time before he can make them into actual products, but he enjoys collecting local wood so that in the future, he’ll hopefully be able to make products out of locally produced wood, Saito told us. |
ACCESS
- Kino Shigoto Juju
- Sendai-shi, Miyagi