Japan Current I

Illustrated in Coffland, Robert T. The Tanabe Lineage: Four Generations. Santa Fe, NM: TAI Gallery, 2009, p. 37. The title of this work is Kuroshio or Japan Current, referring to the warm ocean current that flows northeast from the Philippine Sea past the southeast coast of Japan to the North Pacific. To create this square flower basket Yōta used a twining (nawame-ami) technique with black bamboo which generates an image of the flowing current. The bamboo was subsequently dyed and finished with wiped-lacquer (fuki-urushi).