Features of the Department of Handicrafts
We support students' experience in creation through the use of a wide variety of materials.
Students can study how to create their own “forms” by learning traditional skills step by step.
We offer courses by material from which students can select the most suitable according to their aptitude and interests.
In groups of only seven to eight, students can receive deeper and more thorough tutorial training at workshops.
We offer the time and space where students can engage in creation for practical uses or with purely artistic aims, according to their own sensibilities.
Purpose of education
- We aim at nurturing original and creative artists, by helping our students to acquire knowledge and skills in arts and crafts.
- We aim at nurturing people who will work for the social penetration of arts and culture, by helping our students to recognize the role of arts and crafts within society.
Woodworking Course
Pieces of wood become materials, materials become components, components suddenly take on “forms”.
Sawing, chiseling, doweling-all these processes require deep concentration and traditional skills. Wood becomes functional, concepts and new forms arise. Wooden pieces live among people as beautiful objects. That is the best part of woodworking.
Japanese Lacquer Course
Students learn coating of round containers, the basics of lacquer craft, and study figurative arts that use the dry lacquer technique and ornamenting techniques such as gold-relief and mother-of-pearl inlay. Students also engage in lacquerware production. They study the characteristics of lacquer tree sap and explore its potential as a material. Emphasis is also placed on studies to deepen the understanding of the lacquer culture.
Metalworking Course - Chasing
In this course, you will learn how to handle copper and silver, as well as other metals. You will acquire the basic skills for chasing and embossing metals using specialized tools, with special emphasis put on theoretical aspects. By producing reliefs, accessories and abstract works your sensitivity to the material and its potential for expression will be heightened. This course is a journey of exploration and discovery that we all take together.
Metalworking Course - Casting
The metal casting course will give you the skills need to create functional and decorative objects from of molten metal poured into moulds capable of withstanding temperatures above 1000 degrees Celsius. Learning both traditional and state-of-the-art techniques, you will spend two years on a diverse variety of projects, creating both imaginative and functional pieces, as well projects undertaken jointly with the chasing and embossing students in a course specifically designed to bring out the individual artistry of each student.
Textile Course - Weaving
Cotton, linen, silk and wool are the most familiar textiles that we can
touch at any time in our daily lives.
The study in the course starts with observing the characteristics of such
materials and then moves into weaving cloth that expresses one's imagination
by moving one's hands, exercising one's wits and using one's body.
This is what creation that touches one's heart means.
Textile Course - Dyeing
Have you ever been attracted by a small piece of palm-sized cloth?
Students
will formulate themselves while they produce their works in a quiet world,
through coming face to face with materials and moving their hands ceaselessly.
Ultimately students will create a work of choice sometime in the future.
Glass & Ceramics Course - Glass
A creator breathes into his work, while manipulating 1,200 °C red-hot
glass.
When you see the glass as a material for creation, you will see the wider
world that you have never known before.
By blowing, cutting and casting, glass shows a variety of expressions in
light. The glass becomes transparent, translucent or opaque.
A piece of work is shaped when you can manipulate glass at will and wish
to convey some message through the work.
Glass & Ceramics Course - Ceramics
Importance has been attached first to earth (argil), second to kiln (calcinations)
and third to decoration (knowledge and skills) in making ceramics.
It is fundamental to understand the characteristics of argil fully and realize
the significance of calcinations through production.
The course offers scientific interpretation and guidance in the skills of
master ceramists that used to be acquired by their hunches or experiences.
The course intends to foster human resources capable of interpreting production
based on contemporary daily lives and implementing it accordingly.
Fine Art Course
In this course, students mainly study and experience materials in oil and
acrylic painting through practice. They use such materials to express and
realize their imagination for practical training and graduation projects.
The course also offers studies of various techniques created by many painters
up to the present.
Production accompanies a succession of expectations and failures. Students
are taught to experience difficulties and the beauty of self-expression. We hope your school life will be filled with a sense of accomplishment and excitement.
