Help produce our book about Japanese lacquerware

Hello, Our name is åbäke and we have been working for a few years with Craft(wo)men in Wajima, Japan, to understand and produce objects and situations in urushi. Urushi and specifically Wajimanuri is japanese lacquerware craft, honed for centuries in the Noto region. We have been lucky enough to be welcomed by them and we collaboratively made objects, from unique to multiples, We are ready to tell the stories in a book for which we need your help and interest.

Please pre-buy your copy or help us by purchasing screenprint editions, lacquerware objects or even come for Sunday lunches served on urushi.

A note on delivery: while working with urushi crafts(wo)men, we learned that the objects are ready when each worker thinks the quality is excellent. They traitionally don't work with deadlines but simply with the respect due to people and quality. It is ready when it is ready. Same here, this is not a christmas project so we will guarantee a delivery as soon as possible. If you pre-buy to gift it for Christmas, please make the voucher to your friend and explain it WILL get to them.

We have listed the pre-order below and the presents. It includes shipping.

1/ For £40 we will send you Wajimanuri golden love

A very special book printed in offset. It will be ready in the Spring of 2024. Edited and designed by åbäke, text by Charlotte York. 128 pages, hard cover (screenprint and foil, design by LPPL)

2/ For £111 we will send you the book and Where Have All The small Years Gone?, a screen print (203 x 294 mm) edition of 9 (unframed)

Colours: 5

Paper: Equivivalent of Munken Lynx rough, 1.4, 300 gsm

Stamped numbered and signed

3/ For £123 we will send you the book and Patience painting, a screen print (240 x 330 mm) edition of 17 (unframed)

Colours: 3

Paper: Japanese sugar paper, 70 gsm

Stamped numbered and signed

4/ For £222 we will send you the book and Where Have All The big Years Gone?, a screen print (284 x 413 mm) edition of 13 (unframed)

Colours: 6 colours plus metallic foil

Paper: Equivalent of Munken Lynx rough, 1.4, 300-400 gsm

Stamped numbered and signed

5/ GONE, sorry: For £250 we will send you the book and Will you still love me when I am not Lana Del Rey

Urushi (Japanese lacquerware) "rough" bowl in a card box.

This is no longer available.

6/ For £280 we will send you the book and Where Have All The Months Gone? (Campai)

Urushi (Japanese lacquerware) wooden cup in a wooden box

twenty one available

7/ For £1000 we will send you the book and you will be invited to a «Sunday lunch on Urushi in Hackney or Leyton». åbäke, Charlotte York and LPPL will cook and host you with fresh food, bubbly and, depending on the catch, the famous fish from our friend Gary's boat, caught in the previous night, fresher than Billingsgate and sometimes even Tsukiji.

Details and date TBC

8/ For £3000 we will send you the book and Where Have All The Years Gone?

Urushi (Japanese lacquerware) bowl in a wooden box. There are only two in existence and you can have one, the other we use almost everyday.

9/ For £3333, we will send you the book and Unagi box

Urushi (Japanese lacquerware) eel box, as seen at Okamura eel restaurant in Yokohama.

10/ For £6000 (bingo!) we will send you the book and Ryan locked it but Octopussy a concrete and urushi wave breaker sculpture. Unique of course