Shiro Yamazaki

Born in Nagasaki Prefecture in 1949. He runs the jewellery and craft studio Studio S. Alongside jewellery and graphic design and a metal-chasing school, he works across tea utensils, netsuke, haiku, soba, architecture and music.

He converted a late-Edo farmhouse beside a clear stream at the foot of the Tanzawa mountains in Kanagawa into his own home and workshop, naming it Suimintei. It is a place of work, a dwelling, and at times a venue for live music. The building itself is one of his works.

Drawn to kaleidoscopes, he pursued years of trials in search of the depth of Japanese craft, and named the results genmyokyo. The bodies use the traditional Japanese chasing techniques of sukashi (openwork) and kingeshi, combined with bamboo and porcelain.

Inside are amethyst, emerald, opal and aquamarine, Italian glass and shell. Each piece is wrapped in a shifuku pouch and placed in a lacquered paulownia box — so that beauty may be carried, and shared. In recent years he has also collaborated with other Japanese craftspeople.