World renowned KU AMBIANCE Brand arrives in Germany.

THE KU AMBIANCE BRAND:

For over 20 years, the designers at Ku Ambiance have been illuminating the intersections between Japan, America, and Europe. And since 2000, with the start of a new millennium it has been of growing interest to see how the most traditional Japanese arts and crafts—many with traditions of hundreds of years behind them—will fare in the new century.

These traditional arts all value the “hand-made” as a primary and naturally good value. At a time when most people experience only machine-made goods often composed of plastic or other artificial materials, to encounter a hand-made object made of natural materials and lovingly shaped by a master artist can be a sublime and humbling experience.

In Japan, the work of master craftspeople is the pinnacle of aesthetic achievement, and the work ethic of countless hours spent on achieving the “mastery” of craft can be daunting to outsiders. Many of the artists we feature in this book spent decades learning and developing their craft. Some had apprenticeships that lasted twenty years or more. Some practice arts or skills virtually unknown outside Japan, and not fully appreciated except by collectors in-the-know. And some of these artists now find themselves re-inventing while still venerating family traditions of art-manufacture that go back over 400 years.