Three Schools Project: A Mokumegane Seminar

JMRI was invited to hold a mokume-gane seminar at Hiko Mizuno College of Jewelry in September 2009, to take part in their Three Schools Project.  Three Schools Project was "founded in 1993 by world-renowned jewelery designers, Professor Otto Künzli (Munich), President Takahiko Mizuno and Professor Kazuhiro Itho (Hiko Mizuno) and Professor Joke Brakman (Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Amsterdam).(http://www.rca.ac.uk)." 

On the day, Prof. Künzli, Prof. Hans Stofer from Royal College of Arts in London and an aspiring Japanese jewelry designer, Mr. Jiro Kamata joined the seminar and we all sit in a Japanese-style tatami-room at Hiko Mizuno tokyo campus with students from Japan & abroad, and discuss about mokume-gane. The content of the workshop is as follows;

  • Introduction
  • History of Mokume-Gane
  • How to Make Mokume-Gane
  • Talks & Discussions over Mokume-gane antique works (JMRI collection)

三校合同展-1-original.jpg      三校合同展-2-original.jpg

Image (left): A view of participants looking at mokume-gane sword-fittings.
©Japan Mokumegane Research Institute 2009

Image (right): Masaki Takahashi (The rep. of Japan Mokumegane Research Institute);
Prof. Otto Künzli (Academy of Fine Arts in Munich/Akademie der Bildende Künste München): Prof. Hans Stofer (Royal College of Art).
©Japan Mokumegane Research Institute 2009


Voice of Participants

Here are some of the comments left by the participants.

三校合同展-お客様の声1.jpg     三校合同展-お客様の声2.jpg     三校合同展-お客様の声3.jpg

三校合同展-お客様の声4.jpg (A)     三校合同展-お客様の声5.jpg (B)
 
(A)

It feels like the image I had about "mokume-gane" has completely changed after the seminar. Mokume-gane has a lot of  varieties and it was a joy to witness those in person, looking at the mokume-gane collection. I hope I could apply what I had experienced today to my future (works). Thank you very much.

(B)

Dear Takahashi Sensei,

Thank you very much for bringing us such a precious collection of yours.  I have a strong passion in metals and I am glad to have a wonderful experience to see various metal works today. Thank you.


Inquiries about Mokume-Gane seminars/workshops are here:
Email: npo_mokumegane@yahoo.co.jp