If you weren’t paying attention, you wouldn’t think it was anything special. Quietly casting a pair of trained eyes on something that would be buried in the everyday life, a new understanding as a ‘beauty within a palm’ could reside in the thing being scooped up.

We see a simple tray made of wood. It is a daily-use tray carved during winters by people in a village, which is now at the bottom of a dam lake. Influenced by the village name, the tray is called ‘Wagata Bon (tray)’. I have been drawn by the world of Mingei (folk crafts) since I was young, and wishing one day to own a good tray. When we have a passion – almost like an obsession – as in Soetsu Yanagi’s essay about being a collector, our wish seems to come true.

A tray, made just by carving a piece of chestnut wood. There is a sense of well-built architecture, which I find extremely beautiful. It is featured in the Japanese art of tea ceremony too, as a tobacco tray. I am almost certain that there must have been a tea master in the past whose eyes reached this gentle wood grain from such a minor place.

Upstream of the Daishoji River in Kaga City of Ishikawa Prefecture, Wagata Village had a history of four hundred years and a few decades, but it was closed as a consequence of migration from the mid 1950s. It suddenly came under the spotlight when these wooden craftworks were discovered during the survey undertaken before the village was flooded by the dam.

It is carved largely in a rectangle shape by a chisel. There are nice rhythmical chisel marks passively left inside. The tray I own is unusual for its depth and ripple-like chisel marks on the bottom. Even looking at the whole of Japan, it is safe to say that Wagata Bon has a unique formative sense of a wooden tray. During the winters, people in the village might have sat by an Irori fireplace, faced the wood piece, and competed unconsciously with each other’s handcraft skills.

It is a realisation of the attractive figure that wood holds. Maybe because of the fact that the village is now lost, I am even more drawn by the value of that which is left behind. When I look at this one tray in my hands, I simply become moved and my feeling is lifted.

It is understandable that quite a few contemporary wood craft artists have become obsessed by the revival of Wagata Bon. I am not sure that contemporary work can compete with the craftsmanship of unknown villagers. But I can say that it is a natural providence that the beautiful thing is unforgettable.

Masato Kurotani, Director, genra art