Encountering the Works and Life of a Lacquer Master
I have known lacquer artist Toshiko Noda for many years, as a close family friend. She not only creates her own work but also runs lacquer classes at her home to pass on the art and culture of lacquer. Our family has had the opportunity to create lacquerware and furniture under her guidance.
Spending time with Noda-sensei, I heard many things — how the spread of cheap, convenient tableware had led to the decline of folk crafts; how traditional techniques were hanging by a thread due to a lack of successors. The problems felt so deeply rooted that I couldn't imagine how to solve them.
One day, visiting her home as I often did, something quietly struck me. Her work wasn't only lacquerware — it embodied the very thing that Japanese people have treasured since ancient times: a sustainable way of life, lived alongside wood and nature.
I was deeply moved. I knew I couldn't live the same extraordinary life she had built, but I resolved to find my own way to bring it into my daily living. I believe that multiplying such experiences — for more people — is what will ultimately help address the challenges facing traditional culture.
The Late Mayu Ogawa, the Origin of This Place
Architect & Founder of Kankyō Kōbō, the late Mayu Ogawa
The late Mayu Ogawa — architect and founder of Kankyō Kōbō — was the original owner of the building where VINTAGING now stands.
Ogawa-san opened his home to everyone, creating a place where anyone could relax and find a smile. He not only shared wonderful food and drinks but taught the cultural meaning behind them — from the significance of New Year's ozōni, otoso, and osechi, to food cultures and living wisdom from around the world. He was someone who passed on the traditions people have cherished — not just in Japan — not through words alone, but through lived experience.
The very first time I visited and met him, something sparked in me, and I decided then and there to rent a room in the building.
Each visit I'd arrive with a ¥500 coin, and he'd let me use whatever was in the fridge and teach me how to cook. We'd drink the miso soup we'd made together, and he'd say, quietly — "Rui, still a way to go," or "You've gotten much better" — a silent teacher who never elaborated, but always knew.
After that, I rented office space there for an NPO, then a new apartment where I spent the years of my marriage and the birth of our child. Over nearly ten years, Ogawa-san was diagnosed with cancer. In the end, I was by his side when he passed.
Now, I make miso soup at home, tasting as I go. My family often says "Delicious!" — and every time they do, I am reminded that Ogawa-san is still there, somewhere inside me.
More than a decade later, the relationship continued with his sister and her children, who had inherited the building — and that is how we came to rent this space for VINTAGING.
Now it is our turn to create a place where we can share our own culture with the world.
Doing "Someday" Now
After our child was born, our days became a blur of shared work and parenting — consumed by simply keeping our daily life afloat. My wife had long been struggling with the contradiction of not being able to bring her ideals into the life she was actually living.
"Someday, I want to buy a secondhand apartment and create my dream space" — as she visited different places and thought it through, I would half-jokingly say, "In that case, why don't you just go live alone for a while?"
But even if the constraint of "one home" meant that "someday" couldn't happen in the reality of now — perhaps if we created both an everyday space and a non-everyday space, both could coexist. That spark of inspiration became the starting line for this place: creating a space we truly love within the KANAE WORKS office.
We've been collecting vintage furniture we held back on for years, all while asking ourselves — what do we truly need? How can this feel genuinely comfortable for the people who come here? Trial and error that continues every day. My wife apparently loved Sylvanian Families as a child, and she laughs, saying "This is basically real-life Sylvanian Families," as we haul heavy furniture together.
We, too, are VINTAGING in progress — still becoming. Drawing from the feelings and stories of all the people we've encountered over the years, we hope to keep sharing our own way of living from this place.
By spending time with us in this gallery cafe — a slice of the extraordinary within our ordinary life — we hope that our guests, our staff, and everyone who becomes part of this place will find a reason to walk their own unique path in life.
A Parallel Career for Self-Actualization
Management consulting, NPO work, social ventures, GLOBIS, coaching — feeling that something was missing from just one type of work, I kept making choices about how to work. And one day I looked up to find a whole parallel career had spread out before me.
What strikes me most is this: work done in pursuit of self-actualization has a kind of breadth and texture that transcends conventional job titles. Rather than fitting yourself to an existing role, there is actually the option of holding multiple professions in service of your own self-actualization — and that option is real.
The people who have come to be involved with us often join because they want to turn what they truly care about into work, or they leap in because they want to "try working here now" in pursuit of a future dream. Some come because they are closing their own business but want to preserve the relationships with their most valued customers — and choose to build a community here.
I hope that by working or simply being part of this space, people find an opportunity to reflect on their own life. That is the kind of journey I want to take — VINTAGINGing together, with others who hold onto what matters.