Japan · Ceramics & Pottery / Folk Toys
下川原焼土人形 (Shitakawara-yaki tsuchi-ningyo); hato-bue = pigeon whistle; tsuchi-bue = clay whistle
Hand-painted earthenware dolls and whistles made in Hirosaki, Aomori Prefecture, by pressing red-earth-and-sand clay into molds, bisque-firing at about 800 °C and painting by hand over a white ground in yellow, purple and red. The best-known piece is the pigeon whistle; zodiac figures, hina dolls, masks and a series of yokai (folk spirit) whistles are also made. The craft began as winter work for the domain's potters in the early 19th century, flourished in the Meiji period when former samurai took it up, declined with tin toys in the Taisho period, and survives in two workshops in Hirosaki. Aomori Prefecture designated it a traditional craft in March 1996.
Risk level: Critically Endangered (two workshops remain in Hirosaki; the Takaya workshop reports no successor) · Not inscribed
Echizen ware is produced around Echizen-chō in Fukui Prefecture, on Japan's west coast, with pottery activity tracing back roughly 1,300 years and its identity as a distinct production area emerging about 850 years ago in the late Heian…
Light, strong everyday objects made by layering washi over a base of paper, bamboo or wood and coating them with persimmon tannin (kakishibu) or urushi lacquer.
Suminagashi ("floating ink") is a Japanese paper-marbling technique in which sumi ink and a surfactant are alternately touched to the surface of plain, unsized water to form concentric rings, which are gently manipulated by breath or fan…
Two textiles made from washi in Shiroishi, Miyagi Prefecture.
Basketry from the Hirosaki area of Aomori Prefecture in which wild akebi vines, and wild-grape (yamabudo) bark, are harvested in autumn, dried, soaked, stripped of nodes and plaited by hand into handbags, trays and colanders in plain,…
Lacquerware of the Hirosaki area of Aomori Prefecture in which patterns are built up in many layers of colored lacquer and then revealed by repeated grinding and polishing back through the layers (togidashi kawari-nuri).
The making of the decorative bas-relief sprigs (individually applied relief elements) for Wedgwood Jasperware — the unglazed fine stoneware with colored body (the iconic Wedgwood blue, sage green, or black) and applied white relief…
The hand-throwing and freehand underglaze painting of tableware and decorative ceramics in El Carmen de Viboral, Antioquia — Colombia's self-styled 'capital of ceramics' and 'cradle of artisan ceramics.' Founded as a ceramics center in…
A miniature-ceramic tradition of Ilobasco, a former Lenca and later Pipil settlement in Cabañas department, in which artisans sculpt tiny painted clay scenes of daily Salvadoran life — a woman selling mangoes, a village market, a nativity…
Two related dark-material craft traditions of the Achi' Maya town of Rabinal: the hand-carving of geometric designs into polished black jícaras (dried gourds from the calabash tree, Crescentia cujete, also called guacales) to a…
A pre-Columbian, hand-formed pottery tradition of the Chorotega people of Guaitil and neighboring San Vicente, Guanacaste province, using clay mixed with a fine river sand locally called "iguana sand" — named for the reptiles that lay…
The fettling tradition of the Staffordshire Potteries — the finishing of unfired clay pieces to remove mold seams, sharp edges, and casting irregularities before firing, using the specific fettling knife and sponge technique that defines…