OPENSTUDIO in JAPAN

Tosinobu TAKAMITSU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BipVvkk8i2w&feature=youtu.be

international broadcast (NHK WORLD great gear) on April 22 (Mon)

Toshinobu Takamitsu is a designer and craftsman who runs his studio and craft shop named "Open Studio" in Kumamoto Prefecture. After learning design in college, he studied glass blowing in the UK and became a successful glassware maker. Later, he learned blacksmithing in the US, and began making wood stoves and other iron products. He then focused his attention on the brooms used for cleaning the stoves. So he went back to the US to learn how to make them. Back in Japan, Takamistu felt the desire to create original brooms made with his own unique way of weaving. He thus began creating brooms using all sorts of objects to act as rods like the neck of stringed instruments, hockey sticks, golf clubs or pool cues. He uses broom corn grown in Thailand, as it is the most easily accessible kind. He learned how to tie and dye the thread used to hold the corn grass together from his wife, a professional weaver. In the future, he hopes to establish a school that will make learning product-making techniques more accessible.