What Nishino Urushi Kobo is known for

Nishino Urushi Kobo is the workshop of lacquerer Nishino Takaaki, who trained under the late Sugishita Shigeru, was certified a Kiso lacquerware Traditional Craftsman in 2013, and opened independently in Kiso-Hirasawa in 2019. He hand-finishes chopsticks and small wares in sumi-jiro and shunkei-nuri lacquer techniques.

Nishino Urushi Kobo is a one-person lacquer workshop on the main street of Kiso-Hirasawa, the Nagano lacquer-trade town recognized by Japan's economy ministry as a traditional-craft production area. It belongs to Nishino Takaaki, an upper-lacquerer (nurishi) who entered the trade in 1988.

Nishino studied in the maki-e department of the Kiso Lacquer Art School under the late Sugishita Shigeru, then apprenticed at established Kiso lacquerware shops before setting up on his own. He was certified a Traditional Craftsman of Kiso lacquerware in 2013 and, in 2016, received the Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Award at the National Traditional Crafts Public Exhibition — one of the field's higher public honors. He founded Nishino Urushi Kobo under his own name in Kiso-Hirasawa in 2019.

The workshop's core output is hand-lacquered chopsticks and small wares finished in Kiso sumi-jiro, nuribunke ro-iro, and shunkei-nuri techniques, sold through regional outlets including the Kiso no Kurashi Craft Museum, shops in the Narai-juku post town, and department-store lacquerware corners. Nishino has also taken on corporate collaborations applying the same hand-lacquering to everyday objects such as bento boxes and gear-shift knobs, framing the work as pairing traditional technique with newer applications rather than reproducing set forms alone.