Fukui’s dwindling washi makers hold on to paper-thin margins

I grip the handles of the sugeta, a big, hinged picket body fitted with a versatile silk and bamboo display screen. I had simply dipped it right into a vat of paper pulp, a viscous, cloudy liquid the consistency of egg whites, and there was now an ice-cold puddle of it pooling on the display screen. The body is 85-centimeters large, and even suspended from an overhead beam with rope, the sugeta is heavy sufficient that I battle to maintain it degree.

Kyoko Yanase steps in to information my shaky arms, gently swinging the body backwards and forwards till the liquid is evenly distributed throughout the display screen. Then, the third-generation CEO of Ryozo Paper Mill helps me plunge the body again into the vat beneath.

Exterior the washi (conventional Japanese paper) mill, the streets of Iwamotocho, Fukui Prefecture, are dusted with contemporary December snow; inside, it’s drafty, and I can barely really feel my fingers after three minutes with the sugeta. However that is nothing in comparison with the lengthy hours Kyoko and her fellow tesuki washi (historically handmade paper) craftswomen spend elbow-deep in freezing paper pulp daily.