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Face to Face with Legendary Namiki Master – Kyusai Yoshida (Kokkokai)

Posted on11/06/2010

The experience of meeting one of the most extraordinary urushi masters of Namiki, Mr Kyusai Yoshida, is both exhilarating and exciting for someone who has seen and transacted the many breath-taking masterpieces he had created.

What is it like, in my own eyes, to come face-to-face with a master urushi-shi that makes these wonderful works?

It was my first trip visiting Hiratsuka, the factory of Pilot Corporation in Japan. The early summer heat in 1999 heralded a familiar welcome to the land of the rising sun.

The first thing that I noticed when I stepped into the factory premise was a flag that welcomed the visitor. As if like clockwork, I was welcomed into a meeting room where I met Mr Yoshida, then a slim figure with a soft gentle voice.

After showing me around the factory where thousands of pens were being produced, I was led to two rooms where a number of artists like Mr Masato and others were supposed to be working. Personally, I had met Mr Masato at Elephant & Coral when he first came to Singapore on his honeymoon!

Here, I was engaged in a curiosity hunt for interesting pens and an opportunity to learn from the then Chief Artist. Mr Yoshida carried a brownish maki-e pen that bore a motif of a gourd. Jokingly, I asked if he could give this pen to me as a souvenir (no harm asking!), and sure enough, he said that the pen had been with him for a long time and it would not be appropriate to give a company’s property away.

He shared with me the beauty of how he maintained maki-e works and pens which he carried. Using the back of a curled thumb, he rubbed it gently across the pen barrel and cap of his pen to demonstrate to me how he would “feed” a maki-e pen. The oils from our bodies were supposed to nourish the natural lacquer on the pen, as if it were exquisite jadeite. All along, he maintained his soft gentle voice which hid a resonant tone of vibrancy synonymous with the explosive creative force inherent in his works.

His brilliance was also evident from how an ordinary piece of work could be elevated to exquisite art when made with his skilful hands. I was already very impressed with his skills on maki-e, knowing full well that some of the maki-e techniques are quite difficult for just one artist to execute and complete.

Only when we have had the good fortune to meet in person a highly skilled urushi-shi, who has produced such exquisite maki-e works, that an unexpected sense of joy and gratification is released from deep within each of us. Smiles and tears of joy began to ooze from my eyes when I realised that I really did meet Mr Kyusai Yoshida, The True Legend.

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