PAPER, PLASTIC OR SHIFUKU

I am always amazed at the presentation that many Japanese artists make out of the packaging or their artwork, though simple in concept, they rarely are in execution. In order to enjoy the object, you must first peel away the layers of packaging to see the piece and for pots that can include multiple boxes and an elaborate shifuku even when the piece is not a chaire. I would hazard a guess that 85% of the exhibition quality pieces by Tsukigata Nahiko have at the very least a shifuku for the pot and quite a few also have a secondary box in either roiro black lacquer or plain kiri wood. Besides the silk shifuku, some or Tsukigata's pots come with a thick, quilted, padded wrapping cloth which bares his personal stamp, I have seen this for a number of his larger vases, tsubo and mizusashi and on the rare occassion with chawan as well. The illustration shows a custom made and fitted shifuku for a large mizusashi by Tsukigata made out of cloth which a number of his shifuku were made out of. Peaking out from the slit down the center, you can glimpse the crusty ash built up on the face of the pot attesting to the fact that Tsukigata knew how to present his pots so that they would always make an impressive entrance.