About an hour and a half’s train ride from central Tokyo leads to a quiet riverside surrounded by the mountains in the Chichibu district of western Saitama Prefecture. Masashi Uda lives here with his family in a traditional Japanese house he renovated himself. In the garden outside is his modest woodworking studio.
Uda’s work originally centered on furniture production. But as he began exhibiting in craft fairs around Japan, he shifted to making more small objects that were easy to pick up and handle, like bud vases, spatulas, and cutlery. “I found that I enjoyed making gadgets that people use every day, that are connected directly with their lives. I also loved meeting and selling to my customers face to face.”
His signature offering is a series of wooden dishes and cutlery featuring a black base decorated with various patterns. At first glance the designs seem to have a primitive feel. But a closer look reveals the elaborate details that Uda has carved out by hand with the customer’s ease of use in mind.
Holding up a spoon, Uda says, “Having this ‘neck’ here makes the spoon look alive, don’t you think?” Uda likes to create a tiny protrusion at the junction of the bowl and the handle. I take the spoon in my hand, and sure enough, I get the same feeling that I get when encountering African folk art—cozy and enchanted.
