
It's hard to imagine the humble bucket being a work of art, but those made by Shuji Nakagawa in his Kyoto studio go for thousands of dollars and have a loyal following.

Nakagawa Mokkougei today makes a variety of household objects. "For my father's and grandfather's generations, there was always enough demand for their product so they didn't have to be innovative," he says, but he has had to innovate in design and marketing to keep the traditional skill thriving.

Shuji Nakagawa is a third-generation craftsman and carpenter for Nakagawa Mokkougei, a Kyoto "oke" maker founded by his grandfather, Kameichi Nakagawa.

Nakagawa was initially resistant to follow his father, but he eventually joined the family business after graduating with a fine arts degree from Kyoto's Seika University.

In 2003 he opened up his own studio -- still an offshoot of the family firm -- in rural Shiga province, a 90-minute drive from the downtown Kyoto workshop that he grew up in.

Nakagawa employs 700-year-old carpentry techniques in the making of wooden buckets and other household items.

Individual sections of the buckets are joined by "invisible" bamboo nails. The joints are perfect and often hard to distinguish.

Made from fragrant "hinoki," or Japanese cedar wood, the items are built to last a lifetime.