Echizen — Crafts and Nature

A day in Fukui begins in the hands of a master.

Iron-rich clay takes shape on the potter’s wheel. For eight and a half centuries, people have fired this earth here, turning it into ceramics. A little further on, kozo fibers dissolve in pure water, and on a bamboo screen, a sheet of paper is born. For one and a half thousand years, this craft has been passed down from generation to generation.

And nearby, in the heat of the forge, glowing steel is transformed into a blade under the hammer’s blows. The Echizen knife tradition spans more than seven hundred years, and today these products are highly prized by chefs around the world.

Clay, paper, and steel are inseparable from water. And in the afternoon, we set out to see it in all its splendor. The waters of the Five Lakes of Mikata are distinguished by shades of blue—the color of each lake changes depending on its depth and salt content.

Firing, papermaking, forging, and preserving water. Fukui is a land where, for centuries, truly beautiful things have been born between human hands, water, and fire.