TO
BI
mingei —
the tools of
everyday Japan

— yō to bi, use and beauty. Yanagi Muneyoshi (Sōetsu) wrote of them as bound to each other: use gives rise to beauty, and beauty helps the use in return. We write about those things the way they were meant to be met: in a kitchen, in a hand, on a floor being swept.

THIS MONTH
Fig. 1 — an everyday rice bowl

BOWLS · MINGEI LINEAGE

The tobikanna bowl

The pattern is not drawn. It is the track left where a thin blade met half-dry clay and leapt away.

RECENT
The shuro palm broom
to come
Getemono: the word before mingei
to come
The tobikanna bowl