we’re talking bamboo forests, rice
paddies, tatami mats,” she grins.
There she discovered two things:
she really wanted to learn about
her own artistic heritage and real-
ized what that was. Although she
admits it sounds nuts, she says,
“I fi nally fi gured out that I was in
fact, Japanese!”
To be accepted in the Kanazawa
school, one must pass an entrance
exam. “The system is very diff er-
ent — you have to decide right away
which technique you want to study.
The three techniques to choose from
were raising (tankin), inlay (chôkin),
and casting (chûkin).
“I had never done inlay and wasn’t
confi dent with casting, so I decided
to go for raising. The entrance exam
consisted of a short essay along the
lines of why I wanted in, and an in-
structor telling us to take a fl at sheet
of copper and ‘raise something that
water will look beautiful inside... in
seven hours.’”
Momoko had no idea how to use
Japanese raising tools and the water
fell out of her piece, but she got into
the Kanazawa College of Arts any-
way. But before she could actually
do anything art-like, she had to learn
to make her own hammers, chisels,
and other specialized tools in addi-
tion to doing her thesis work. Cloth Inlay:
Nunome Zogan
It was at this time that she met Mas-
ter Kazuo Kashima, one of the
world’s best traditional Japanese
metalsmiths and the grandson of Ik-
koku Kashima III, who was a National
Living Treasure in metalsmithing.
Nunome is an incredibly demanding
technique that produces the ap-
pearance of fi nely woven fabric in
metal. Probably developed by Ikkoku
Kashima II during the Meiji period,
Kashima-style nunome is done on
non-ferrous metals, including copper
alloys and silver. By contrast, other
nunome work is done on ferrous
metals, mostly steel, but can also be
applied to iron.design
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