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This stunning decorative dish with the scenery of Tojinbo as a motif is a collaborative work of pottery and lacquer art exhibited in "At the time of lacquer tree budding / Lacquer Work Fuji, Echizen Decorative Ware Exhibition".
Fukui's prefectural flower, daffodils are drawn with lacquer on the blue glazed part of the Echizen-yaki earthenware dish.
Although I tend to think that the picture in lacquer is Makie, these daffodils are drawn with Chinkin (sunken gold decoration).
Chinkin is the decoration technique of engraving the surface and filling the engraved lines or points with gold, on the other hand, Makie is the technique of spreading gold or silver powder over lacquered pattern to fix it.

At this exhibition, collaboration with various materials such as lacquer and ceramics, glass, woodwork, Japanese paper etc. is proposed. It is being held in the gallery 'Fukui Kougeisha Craft Gallery' in the center of Fukui city until March 18th.
T.S

Source: The photograph from the official website of

“RENEW　×　DAINIPPONICHI SABAE HAKURANKAI

(Exhibition of Sabae City in Japan”(http://renew-fukui.com/index.html)

*only available in Japanese

I went to Echizen Sabae Echizen Lacquerware Traditional Industry Building,

Urushi-no-sato Kaikan in Sabae City, Fukui Prefecture in October, 2017.

When I visited there, a special event, “RENEW　×　DAINIPPONICHI SABAE HAKURANKAI (Exhibition of Sabae City in Japan)” was held.

The event “RENEW” cooperated with Nakagawa Masashichi Shoten to make this event happen. The concept of the event is the town the town loved by young designers and craftsmen. 85 studios and companies from Fukui and other prefectures participated in the event.

Other than Echizen Sabae Echizen Lacquerware Traditional Industry Building, Urushi-no-Kaikan in Sabae City, Fukui Prefecture, studios and shops in several areas in Sabae City were used for other events as part of the event.

Source: The photograph from the official website of

“RENEW　×　DAINIPPONICHI SABAE HAKURANKAI

(Exhibition of Sabae City in Japan”(http://renew-fukui.com/index.html)

*only available in Japanese

At Urushi-no-sato Kaikan, as soon as I walked into the building, I saw a cute and gorgeous deer coated with traditional urushi lacquer was exhibited for the special event. And in other areas in the building, there were DJs playing nice music and many designers and artists exhibited their handmade products as well.
They also had Nakagawa Masashichi Shoten’s store and panel discussion.

One of the special booths I liked was a shopping area. There were stylish products including sweaters, sweatshirts, scarfs, accessories, incense and everything in between. They also had Japanese confectioneries and several kinds of snacks.

I bought a pack of incense sticks (the smell is so nice and the package looks stylish)and a bag of organic dried fruits (they tasted sweet even with no sugar added).

The event had both new and old ways of creating things.

I think that traditional things are very important in any culture.

However, focusing on only traditional might be less interesting.

With only traditional, people can't see/feel the new things and/or have new perspectve.

Things can stay the same and it can inhibit potential of young people as well.

Therefore, I enjoyed this event so much because it had both new and old.

I would like to share one of our videos
" Lacquerware artisans from Bhutan taking a training program in Kawada district in Sabae City".

In this video, young lacquerware artisan from Bhutan who learned about Japanese lacquerware in Sabae, Fukui talks about how she felt about the lacquerware in Sabae, Fukui. She also talks about how important for both new and old are used. Please enjoy watching it.

T.F

Official website of Echizen Lacquerware Cooperative