Twenty years ago, walking through Tokyo, Atsuko Kitamura suddenly became aware of a blank wall rearing up in front of her, high into the sky. "The building was so ugly. This is when I decided cityscapes needed cheering up, beautifying. The problem was, how? My usual medium, paint, wouldn't last long. What could best withstand wind and rain and sun, year in, year out?"
She found her answer in cloisonne, the ancient art and craft -- Japan does not draw a definitive line between the two, as in the West -- of decorating metal surfaces with enamel. Cloisonne is thought to have been invented in the Middle East, but was perfected in China, Japan (where it is known as "shippo-yaki") and France.
The accepted technique is to attach filaments of metal to an object; these outline a design, creating compartments to be filled with colored enamels. But as Kitamura demonstrated last week in her "atelier" in Takadanobaba, she is less interested in creating small finicky pieces, and more inclined toward the largest-scale murals she can persuade clients to commission.