Love the simplicity & subtile complexity in this work ! For the rest i’m just going to quote Ford here for a bit because he’s a far more better storyteller than i am 🙂
This tsuba is made from nails that came from a 120 year old Japanese farmhouse. The pieces were forged together loosely so that the grain of the material would be visible when the tsuba was finished. The shakudo plugs in the kogai-hitsu are of a shakudo alloy based on analyses of Momoyama period shakudo.
The shakudo has been etched with acid to reveal the inner structure of the material. I call this nama-shakudo.
By using metal in this way I want to show that it has an inner life that can become part of the expression of 21st century tsuba art.
For the rest of the story, just hop over to his FB page.
You can also check his site of course…
