A Centuries-Old Tradition Faces a Global Challenge

I hold in my hand the most beautiful pen I have ever seen in my life. It has heft, weighing a solid 87 grams, and it is made out of sterling silver with a hint of super-engineering plastic. The detail of the pattern etched into the pen is so intricate that one needs a magnifying glass to see it all. In fact, the artisan who hand-painted this pen used a jeweler’s loop as he worked. The pen is exquisite - and well it should be, costing ¥15,750,000, which translates to a boatload of US dollars (or more specifically, about $150,000 at current exchange rates).

Takashi Arai, the director of the Cooperative Association for Promotion of Kanazawa Kaga Maki-e, explains to me that this pen and the other smaller ones for women (a steal at just ¥2,730,000) were meant to bring maki-e down a notch from its historically lofty status. That’s right, maki-e - a painting technique that uses powder, thin plates of gold and silver, shells and lacquer - had noble enough beginnings in Japan to make $150,000 pens a step down. Partly because of its lofty status, maki-e is fighting for relevancy in today’s art world. The few craftsman who still practice maki-e are looking for ways to connect with art lovers overseas.

“Maki-e is one of Japan’s little cultural treasures,” says Mr. Arai. “It has a deep meaning in Japan … it first arrived (from China) around the year 1000, and it was used for the emperor and nobility. That’s how it got started. It wasn’t used for daily necessities at all.”

Items made in the maki-e style were often part of a bride’s dowry back then, Arai explains. “They were unbelievably gorgeous items. They eventually became part of samurai culture. Finally, in the Edo Era (1603-1868), maki-e was used for more everyday items targeted at the upper class.”

While there is no question that maki-e is exquisite - I’ve never held anything in my hand that was quite so intricate and detailed and yet still made by a human being - the craft is also having trouble finding a foothold in the modern world. In Japan today, choices abound for art and antique collectors, and sometimes, traditional crafts such as maki-e get lost in the shuffle. The maki-e artisans of Kanazawa and Ishikawa prefectures, on Japan’s west coast, could see that they were losing the fight to stay relevant as young people paid less attention - or didn’t even know about - maki-e and as imitators started to crank out inferior products and call them maki-e.

About three years ago, the group decided to form the co-op mentioned above. The members also decided that they needed to make a product that was a little more marketable and accessible to people around the world. They weren’t looking for mass sales as much as they were looking to turn the heads of the very rich. Pens and watches (made with the Japanese branch of Swiss watchmaker Bovet) are what the group decided upon.

Arai is not one of the craftsmen; he’s a promoter and a producer. He sketches out designs for the craftsmen to execute. “I’ll ask them for something that they say they just can’t do. I’ll ask for ten patterns in a given space, and they’ll say they can only do three. By going back and forth on it, they eventually figure out a way to do all ten,” he says with a laugh.

Today, excluding the imitators and the contemporary artists who dabble in maki-e, there are not even 500 “pure maki-e craftsmen” left in Japan, Arai estimates.

Masaharu Nishimura is one of the final 500. “My grandfather was a craftsman. But it looked so difficult that I figured I would never be one myself. I wanted to be an architect,” Nishimura recalls. “But there are lots of architects and very few maki-e craftsmen. I started thinking about fate, and how, if this is my fate, maybe I should just go for it.”

Nishimura says he has about one vacation day a month. His workday typically begins at 7am. He’ll break for lunch, break again at 7pm for dinner, then work until about 11pm.

Nishimura says it has always been tough making a living as a maki-e craftsman. He recalls his father reaching the height of his career in the post-World War II years, “but there was no one to buy his creations.”

Katsuhiko Urade is another maki-e craftsman from Wajima City. He says he was interested in art from a young age, but it wasn’t until later in his school years that he started becoming fascinated with maki-e and another intricate form of painting called chinkin, which is similar to maki-e except the artist carves into the lacquerware with a sharp chisel, then gold leaf or powder is inlayed into the carved design.

Urade graduated from a technical school, then began the long journey to becoming a maki-e craftsman, spending about eight years in training.

Both Nishimura and Urade kind of chuckle when I ask them if they’re glad that they became maki-e craftsmen. It’s a tough life. The fact that the Japanese no longer put the artwork on a pedestal has made it tougher. “Lately, I’ve realized that maki-e can no longer be just for Japan,” says Urade. And that’s way this group of maki-e craftsmen is reaching out to the world.

If you don’t have an extra hundred grand or so burning a hole in your pocket, there’s another way to enjoy maki-e: Take a tour of the facilities in Kanazawa where the craftsmen work. Here kimono and other garments are made with Ushikubi pongee silk. Watch the craftsmen at work then go try some local sake. One American expat who had lived more than 10 years in Japan told me that a visit to the maki-e craftsmen’s village was one of the most memorable trips he ever made in Japan.