The “World” that Comes in a Small Package

“In here is held everything I love.” Seven years before, on her intuition, Tada picked up the book Chabako Asobi* from a bookstore.

On impulse she began to assemble tea box sets and had completed more than ten in a single year. She thought, “This is so much fun, why don’t I try an exhibition?” Her approach to a showing was relaxed, yet she received an unexpectedly enthusiastic response, and before she knew it, she was being called “an artist of chaboko [tea ceremony boxes] and shifuku [tea utensil casings].”

* Chabako Asobi [literally, “Playing with Tea Boxes”] is by author Akemi Horiuchi through Tankosha Publishing.

One tea box fits into a foreign-made coffee can, another looks like a picnic basket, … Many of the attendees to Tada’s exhibition commented with words like “delightful” and “it sparks joy.” The promise of “tea” is found in many small worlds, and there’s a simple pleasure in each of Tada’s pieces, like turning the pages of a picture book.

A white tin is brought to the table. Somehow, this is also chabako. “I want to say this one was about two thousand yen at a general store. Its set is assembled with the theme of ‘Summer Lighthouse.’ I found it at ‘Galierie Noyau,’ and was inspired by the glass craftwork of Yoshiko Nitta.”

Looking closer, the tea whisk holder is rusting like metal on a sandy beach, giving it a playful touch. She continued, “The entire set fits nicely into this box, and when you open it, a world expands outward. That’s its charm.”

The Joy of Expression Through Things

“I make shifuku simply for my own pleasure. I’m no professional,” Tada emphasizes. She adds that she holds solo exhibitions as a way “to connect with others through these pieces.”

She says, “I’d think at first, ‘Oh, this person and I probably don’t have anything in common.’ But then suddenly the other person would feel deeply connected to my work. To hear something like, ‘I have the same impression! I understand what you’re expressing here,’ is such a happy moment for me.

“Physical objects can embody those underlying thoughts that can’t be put into words. Our things can even say more than mere words alone ever could.”

Many people [even many Japanese] are not familiar with the term, shifuku, the drawstring bags that enclose tea ceremony utensils. Because each piece in a tea ceremony set is a different shape and size, each shifuku must also be custom made to fit. Although the customs for formal tea ceremony are strict, there is more freedom for assembling and designing tea chests in more casual settings such as with nodate, an “open-air” tea ceremony.

“Naturally, for tools that have been passed down for hundreds of years, you’d want them wrapped and held with a certain level of quality. That said, I don’t think it has to negate a sense of playfulness,” she says.

“It’s precisely because these rules exist that you can have fun deviating from them. If you didn’t know about them, it would just seem tedious. In that sense, I think the tea ceremony is a way to understand Japanese culture.”

Endless “Play” in a Search for Harmony

Laughing, Tada says, “Assembling a tea chest like this is like playing ‘dress up’ as an adult.” But even building one requires a lot of time and energy. In Tada’s case, once she has the image of one of the utensils in mind, she builds the set around it. Once she’s matched a set that fits snugly into a tea box, she creates the shifuku cases for each, one by one.

To make a single shifuku, Tada selects her material from hundreds of samples, and then choses a suitable drawstring. As finding something ready-made to fit the image in her mind is rare, she often has to create the strap for the drawstring herself from silk thread. With no one to teach her how to do this, she taught herself through books and online references.

“Even if an individual case is balanced and well-designed, it still has to be in harmonywith the rest as a set. If I happen to think, ‘Oh, red might be good here,’ that single instance of the color can change the overall impression entirely, so it can be really difficult.”

In other words, creating a tea chest set means she makes constant adjustments to find just the right balance among infinite possibilities. That “Aha!” moment when it finally comes together in a satisfying way is one of joy.

Incorporate Old Pieces, Incorporate Pieces Whether You Like Them or Not

The style that Keiko Tada brings to her tea chest sets shines in every corner of her home. A lone white flower occupies an old chemist’s mortar. “I like old things,” she says, “so I pull them out of storage and display them.” Her husband is of the 17th generation descended from oil shop workers who supplied rapeseed oil to the Maeda family, the ruling lords of Edo era Kanazawa. Artifacts from the time have been passed down through the family. “A space filled with only brand new things is too slick and uninteresting. But mixing old and new makes it feel just right.”

“When selecting things, it doesn’t matter if it’s old or new, Japanese or not. It’s only about whether I like it. Of course, I do care about price. There’s no sense in collecting things outside your means.”

Furthermore, when something “clicks,” its original function is not important. When matched with a set, something that was never designed to fit in a tea chest suddenly fits together as if it were destined for that purpose.

“Uselessness” is Essential

Tada certainly seems to live a “life of good taste” that would be the envy of anyone. Yet she surprised me saying, “I was worried what would come of doing all this.”

Struggling with caring for aging parents and raising children… At that time, many things were overlapping, and “it was like walking down a tunnel with no end in sight.” She continues, “Many people thought I was simply doing whatever I felt like, but that wasn’t the case at all. Making a living is not always pretty.”

However, the nearly fifty tea chests she completed over six years tells how much time and effort such work needed and the daily grind that pressed her on.

“It’s like that single flower. You can ask, ‘How are you useful?’ and it gives no answer. But the beauty of a flower—visible only for a little while—can touch the heart. I’m certain that there is a part of the human heart for which money and efficiency alone are insufficient, and people will try all sorts of things to satisfy that need.”

Letting a small smile slip through, she adds, “Inviting customers over year after year gets a little tiring.” For most of us, reclaiming one’s inner world is not usually on display for others. Once more, today, she arranges flowers and playfully makes a new selection for the next box.