As a future graphic designer, Shichiro Imatake couldn't have picked a better place (Kobe) or time (1905) to be born. Located in western Japan, the port city of Kobe would soon become known for cultural imports like jazz and film, and having only reopened to the outside world in 1868, the country as a whole was in the midst of reinventing itself through rapid modernization. In this respect Shichiro Imatake: Pioneer of Japanese Modern Design (running through 6 December at the Otani Memorial Art Museum, Nishinomiya City, just a few kilometers east of Kobe), a retrospective of Imatake's career, serves as a handy overview of modern art and design in the 20th century as well as of major social trends in Japan. more...

Twenty-four river stones click and clack softly as they dangle from the warp threads of the rush mat Etsuko Hori is weaving in Hirakawa, Hokkaido. "I love that sound," she says of her loom weights. Around her sit piles of dried cattail blades, linden-bark fibers (some she has dyed black and red), and fine linden twine that she has twisted herself -- she'll use 100 meters of it to make a single 1.4-meter mat. As she works, even stray cattail fibers do not go to waste; she sets them aside to make string later. Hori's creative process, and that of other present-day Ainu artisans featured in the "Hands and Hearts" video series produced by the Foundation for Ainu Culture, offers welcome context to the late-18th and 19th-century heritage works on display in The Beauty of Ainu Handiwork, an exhibition now showing at the Japan Folk Crafts Museum (Nihon Mingeikan) in Tokyo through 23 November. more...