It is rainy and the weather is not very good today, but we had a very cool morning. The lowest temperature was around 20°C, so it seems that many people even felt a little cold. It is expected to be even cooler tomorrow. This weather is caused by the typhoon and a rain front, and we are also being warned to watch out for heavy rain.
I am currently making 3-sun puzzle boxes, and after these, I plan to make the Square puzzle boxes again. I just made them last month, but because of a small mistake, I need to make another batch. The mistake was that I made the wrong design. Some of you may remember that I made a natural wood Square puzzle box before with side panels using two different colors of wood. I have had an order for several of these since last year for an overseas shop, and I thought I was making them for that order. However, I completely forgot that the side panels were supposed to use two colors, and I started making them with only Walnut.
Last month, I was making many Square puzzle boxes with Walnut side panels, and I thought I had included this order in that batch. However, partway through the work, I looked at some old photos to check the combination of wood for the top and bottom panels. That was when I noticed…The side panels were two colors!!
Since I cannot make just those few boxes, I am thinking of making another batch of around 30, including some other designs as well. By the way, I will not make any extra boxes of this natural wood design. This will also be the last time I make this natural wood version, so I do not think it will be available for sale on my website. For this batch, I am also thinking of including the random wood grain type and a single-color solid wood type. I have come up with a new pattern for the random wood grain type, so I plan to try that design this time. The Square puzzle box has a straight, vertical shape, so I think designs that make use of its square shape work especially well. For example, the design I made before, where four different woods came together to form squares, was very popular. I think the new design will also follow this kind of idea and make use of the square shape of the box. This time, I plan to make this vertical pattern using three different colors of wood.
Traditional Yosegi is still as popular as ever, but I feel that its production may decrease even more over the next 10 to 20 years. Of course, it is also possible that many new craftspeople will come along and the craft will become more active again, but looking at the situation now, I feel that production is likely to decrease. The other day, I met with the Yosegi craftsman who makes the Yosegi for me, and I also feel that the connection between traditional Yosegi makers and Japanese puzzle box makers is becoming weaker. Basically, these are separate crafts. Traditional Yosegi workshops do not make puzzle boxes, and puzzle box makers do not make traditional Yosegi. For this reason, I would like to continue exploring the possibilities of Japanese puzzle boxes that do not depend too much on traditional Yosegi.
