DESIGN

Kokontozai: KASHIYUKA’s Shop of Japanese Arts and Crafts — Saga Mask for the Year of the Dragon

『カーサブルータス』2023年12月号より

December 8, 2023 | Design | KASHIYUKA’s Shop of Japanese Arts and Crafts | photo_Keisuke Fukamizu hair & make-up_Masako Osuga editor_Masae Wako　translation_ Mika Yoshida & David G. Imber

Searching all of Japan for handcrafted items that express its heart and soul, our proprietor, KASHIYUKA, presents things that bring a bit of luxury to everyday life. This trip took her to the studio of a traditional Japanese painter who works in the Sagano area of Kyoto, where she encountered the Saga-men, a mask that originated as a talisman to ward off evil.

The Saga-men is a mask constructed of papier-mâché made in Saga, Kyoto (not to be confused with Saga, the southwestern prefecture). Its artisan, who by the convention of his lineage is titled Useki Fujiwara III, is also a painter in the traditional Japanese style painter, known in the art world as Hiroyuki Fujiwara. Watching him apply multiple layers of age-old, handmade washi paper over a plaster model, our shopkeeper KASHIYUKA remarked, "I can see that he brings out the nuances of paper that has stood the test of time to reveal its full potential."

Seas, rivers, waterfalls. I suppose the reason I so like places where there’s water is that I was born in the year of the dragon.

“The dragon is a water deity, and when I draw it, I’ve always got the flow of water in mind,” says Mr. Useki Fujiwara, the Saga-men artisan, while gazing at a dragon mask — the dragon being next year’s animal according to the ancient Chinese zodiac.

The Saga-men is a papier-mâché mask modeled on masks for the “Saga Dainenbutsu Kyōgen”, one of the three major Nenbutsu Kyōgen plays that emerged from Kyoto. Near the end of the 19th century they were sold at Buddhist temple gates as talismans to ward off evil spirits, but those who made them died off toward the beginning of the 20th century and the practice ended.

Purchase No. 67【Saga Mask for the Year of the Dragon】Masks representing figures of the traditional Chinese zodiac that invite good fortune, constructed of antique, handmade washi paper.

“My grandfather, Useki Fujiwara I, the initial member of our art-making lineage, studied the form and method on his own, and revived the craft. In addition to the fanciful figures that inhabited the popular imagination in those days,” the artist explains, referring to Otafuku (a young, hardy woman), Okina (an old man), and Tengu (a backwoods gremlin); he also began making masks with the characters of the 12 animals of the ancient Chinese zodiac, by which successive years are still marked in Japan today. “Based upon those, the second generation leader of the lineage, my father, and I, the third, have been inserting our own personality characteristics into the masks to create masks that could only be born in a specific year and time.”

Every process takes place by hand, from making the plaster models to applying the hand-printed paper strips, also talismanic in function, to the mask. The very same dragon-year dragon from 12 years ago bears different colors and expression from today’s. On this day, KASHIYUKA got to witness the washi paper being laid onto the plaster mold for the first time.