Why Ms. Minegishi has to generate more awareness of her craft

A good friend of mine forwarded me a link to the New York Times article "Lacquer to Wear" (thank you, Rebecca!).

I'm thrilled that Ms. Minegishi's beautiful artwork using natural lacquer called urushi (漆) was featured by a major US newspaper, because that's exactly what I would like to see more of.  Many thanks to Kelly Wetherille for contributing the article.

Here I would like to add to the story, as to why Ms. Minegishi has to "generate more awareness of the craft."

Urushi is probably the most durable natural lacquer known to human being.  The world's oldest urushi wood sample was found in Fukui, Japan, and it dates back to 12,600 years.  People have been using this material as glue, paint, and medium of artistic expression for thousands of years.  

The consumption and production of urushi, however, has dwindled in the recent years, as shown in the chart below generated by the Forestry Agency in Japan.

 

Extracting urushi sap from the tree is so time consuming.  Due to the shrinking demand, there are now only 20 professionals who extract urushi sap, and only one person can make the special tool used to extract urushi sap in Japan.  (Kahoku Online News says finally there is one apprentice learning to make the tool now.)

It is my sincere hope (and I believe it's Ms. Minegishi's hope as well) that the world will rediscover urushi's value before it is too late.