A workshop in Ōta, Tokyo
SuuWorx is a woodturning workshop in Minami-Magome, Ōta, Tokyo. There are not many wood lathes left in the city. Bowls, plates, cups, lidded boxes and fine work all come off this one.
The blocks are hinoki and keyaki, taken as they come. Grain, figure and knots are not faults to be turned away — they set where the piece can go. A block allows one shape and no other.
Ugetsubiki
The workshop's inherited technique is ugetsubiki. From a single seamless block, a particular handling of the lathe cuts a ring that stays part of the body it came from. It is never separated and never rejoined. The grain of the ring and the grain of the body run on without a break, so there is no joint to find.
It is isshi-sōden — taught to one successor in each generation. The maker learned it from Shigenobu Inoue, who took up the Western lathe during ten years in New York, heads the Chūbu Western Woodturning Association, and is known for turned pagodas.
The maker
He is also a cook. He runs Tsumugi, a restaurant on the same street, and serves food on vessels he turned himself.
He came to the lathe from the kitchen. He wanted plates and cups that would carry his cooking; a piece of turned wood moved him; he tried to make one, could not, and asked the man who could to teach him. Learning ugetsubiki took about a year. The first piece he was willing to call finished was an ornament. He still works like a cook: an ingredient decides the dish, a block decides the piece. Ichigo ichie — one meeting, once in a lifetime.
How the work is made
No template and no drawing. The block is read first, and the shape follows it.
The marks the tools leave are left in place. They record the moment the material changed, and taking them out would take the moment out with them. What is not perfectly finished is what carries the warmth.
Every stage is done by one pair of hands, to order. No two pieces are the same, and none of them can be made twice.