Article 020: Sandals Carved in Kamakura-Bori

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Article Summary

At a footwear shop in Fukuoka, where I had gone simply to replace a worn pair of geta, I met sandals bearing Kamakura-bori lacquerwork.

Each stroke of the chisel without hesitation. The depth, neither too shallow nor too deep. The lacquer, laid down again and again with unhurried care——I was stopped, completely, by the evidence of a craftsman's hands.

Inside the shop, time did not hurry. The owner's hands never paused.

Something in the quality of that attention turned me back toward my own days.

That night, drinking tea in the quiet, when the memory of that place returned, the noise I carry fell away a little.

Category

Handcrafts

  • What I write here are single frames from a life lived in Japan.
    I hope they reach you in something like the feeling of sitting near embers——warmth that makes no demands.

1. What the Chisel Leaves Behind


Kamakura-bori sandals on tatami, deep-ground carved base, gold-violet thong

The teeth of my geta had finally worn past recovery.

I had tried various remedies for the uneven wear, but the trouble, I came to accept, was in the way I walk.

The feel of geta underfoot is something I am not willing to give up. I put the question to my wife.

Her answer came back without hesitation.

After we had paid our respects at Hakozaki Shrine, we made our way to a footwear shop she had long wanted to visit.

She had told me the shop let you choose your own base and thong, with the owner doing the finishing. The idea took hold of me before I had quite decided it would.

We chose pieces for ourselves, and something to bring to a friend.

Tobeta Hakimono-ten: Hakozaki, Higashi Ward, Fukuoka City

For current information, please see the official site.

Link: https://www.instagram.com/getaya.110

※ Shop details are as of 2010.

The sandals in the photograph were purchased as a gift, but what moved me most that day was the Kamakura-bori itself.

I had known of the technique through books. Seeing it carried out on a sandal base, in front of me, was another thing entirely.

What arrested me first was the movement of the chisel.

Each cut without any hesitation, and yet not reckless——driven in with full intention.

The depth was exact in a way that resists description: not shallow, not excessive, and where emphasis was wanted, just fractionally deeper.

The lacquer, too, carried no desire to overwhelm. To my eye, it was the kind of finish that does not exhaust itself on second or third looking.

The color shifts with the contours of the carving, laid down patiently, layer by layer.

Perhaps it is occupational habit, but I find my attention drawn to the way a blade is handled.

When I see work where the cuts are clean, I tend to arrive at a different place than most people do.

  • Kamakura-bori:
    A traditional craft in which designs are carved into a wooden base, then coated with successive layers of lacquer.

2. A Place Where the Clock Loosens

Watching the owner and a customer together, I had the sensation that the second hand had slowed somewhere I couldn't see.

The owner spoke and listened and never once stopped working.

To watch someone study the specific shape of another person's foot, then bring a pair of sandals to exactly that fit——there is no other word for it than compelling.

The owner drew out what the customer wanted, and within moments produced, from somewhere in the back, precisely what had been described.

The advice offered was exact and generous. Nothing was simplified for convenience.

The words exchanged between owner and customer were unhurried throughout.

I had the feeling I was being given something I had not asked for: time to look back at my own life more carefully.

In the quality of that attention there was something beyond commerce——a care for the actual person standing there, which I think is closer to the original meaning of trade than most trade remembers to be.

That night, tea in hand, in the quiet, recalling the particular quality of that afternoon, I found the noise of the daily world had drawn back a little.

※ The shop as described here reflects a visit made in 2010.

Fifteen years have passed. Hours and details may have changed.

Please confirm current information before visiting.

3. In Closing

  • 「ほりあゆみ　こがまあなぐら　みづどけい」

  • [Hori Ayumi Kogama Anagoura Midou Dokeï]

  • Oh, Lit, Ah, Yu, Mis, Coque, Mât, Ah, Na, Gura, Mi, Des, Doux, Quai.

  • La Poussière qui lave, La Bougie qui nage, L’Ampoule qui embaume.

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References

For references, please use the link below.
Sources consulted for this article: 工 01, 暦 01.

Audio (ambient): 2025_020_ja01

Audio (reading): 2025_020_ja02 (in progress)

　　Microsoft Clipchamp: Brigitte, VOICEVOX: 四国めたん

End of Article

  • My hope is that these pages bring a small discovery, or a faint familiar feeling, to wherever you are reading from.