Large Japanese Woven Bamboo Vase by Masaichi Ishida

All the timelessness of Japanese craftsmanship in this unique large woven bamboo vase. It was made by Kyoto-based Masaichi Ishida, who at over 85 years of age and 69 years of career is recognised as an outstanding master craftsman of the fascinating and time-consuming work of bamboo basketry. This piece was designed in collaboration with Shigeo Mashiro, founder of the Sfera brand, who brought his contemporary vision to this timeless work.

To make this piece, Ishida san first selected the best bamboo, a plant found everywhere in Japan with many endemic varieties, but of which only the most beautiful will give the most beautiful basketry, so this first selection was key. The cut bamboos are then heated to remove the oil from their core and then put to dry. Then begins the slow and extremely tedious work of cutting the bamboo pieces vertically, entirely by hand with the help of various very simple tools, including knives, to obtain thinner and thinner strips, the challenge being of course to obtain strips of very specific and identical dimensions. A very physical job! He then made the patterns by weaving and bending the different strips using ancestral techniques. Several months of work were necessary.

A unique manual work for a unique piece, wonderfully decorative, traditional in its heritage but very contemporary in its style, and which fits perfectly in a modern urban universe. Inside the vase, a removable U-shaped piece of bamboo, covered with black urushi lacquer, can be filled with water to accommodate a floral or plant composition, from the simplest to the most sophisticated. A piece that will leave no one indifferent and which would have been at home in the beautiful "Fendre l'Air" exhibition (2019) at the Musée du Quai Branly in Paris, which celebrated the art of Japanese bamboo basketry.