Emi Irufune - Bark Weaver & Object Maker

Called to the Mountain

Some people are called to a place. Others are called to a material. Emi Irufune was called to both — and had the rare courage to follow.

Born in Niigata, she grew up with mountains on the horizon. Not as a backdrop. As presence. As something that asked something of her. And so in 2015, when the question of what to do with her life became impossible to ignore, she did not look to the city for answers. She looked north. She moved to Hokkaido — not for comfort, not for convenience, but because she was searching for work that connected her to the mountain. Work that meant something. Work that was alive.

She kept going until she found Nakagawa — a small, unhurried town deep in the forests of northern Hokkaido — and quietly, without fanfare, she stayed.

The Vine That Was Being Cut Away

In Nakagawa, Irufune began learning forestry and the practice of satoyama — the art of tending a forest in ways that allow both the land and the people who depend on it to thrive together. It was in this world of trees and careful stewardship that she encountered a practice called tsuru-kiri: the cutting of climbing vines that strangle tree growth and interrupt the forest's upward reach.

The mountain grape vine — yamabudou — was one such vine. Strong, persistent, abundant. And in most forestry operations, simply cut and left behind. But Irufune met a craftsperson who saw something different in those discarded vines. Someone who gathered what others left on the forest floor, and wove it — patiently, beautifully — into baskets and objects of daily life that were stronger and more alive than anything a factory could produce. She was stopped completely.

Here was a material being thrown away. Here were hands giving it new life. Here was a philosophy — that nothing the forest offers should be wasted, that the right pair of hands can find dignity in what others discard — that she recognised immediately as her own.

She asked to learn. And slowly, steadily, the master taught her.

A Harvest With a Season

What most people never know about Irufune's work is that it begins long before the weaving does. Bark — whether from the white birch or the mountain grape vine — can only be harvested during a brief, specific window each year. A few weeks in which the forest's conditions are just right, and the bark will yield itself cleanly and fully. Miss that window and you wait another year.

And so each season, Irufune enters the forest. She moves through the trees she has come to know over years of walking among them. She harvests carefully — taking only what the forest offers, leaving the rest untouched. Then she carries the bark home, processes it by hand, and sets it to dry for several months before it is ready to be woven.

By the time her hands begin to weave, the material has already traveled a long road. From living tree to forest floor to drying room to the quiet of her studio. Each strip of bark carries that entire journey within it.

She weaves using traditional techniques — in particular the ajiro-ami, a centuries-old diagonal lattice weave of extraordinary strength and quiet geometric beauty. Every intersection is a decision. Every row a conversation between intention and material. The work is entirely by hand. It cannot be rushed. It will not be.

Objects That Grow With You

Her work spans bags, daily tools, and jewelry — earrings, necklaces, brooches — each piece sharing the same essential character: made to be held, made to be used, and made to become more beautiful with every passing year.

This is the heart of what she believes. That her work is not finished when it leaves her hands. That it is, in the truest sense, just beginning.

Bark responds to the world. To touch. To light. To time. To the particular life of the person who carries it. Over years of use, a bark bag develops a patina entirely its own — shaped by its owner's days, by the things it has carried, by the seasons it has passed through together with a human life.

She speaks of wanting to create a good cycle — for both the person who uses the object and for the mountain that gave the material. The vine that was once cut away and left behind becomes something carried proudly into a life. The tree whose bark was taken grows on, undamaged. And the object made from both moves through decades of human hands, growing richer and more particular with every year.

This is not craft. This is an ecology of care.

Exhibitions & Recognition

• 2018 — Three-Person Exhibition

• 2023 — Solo Exhibition at Kuroi Mori Museum of Art (Black Forest Art Museum)

• 2026 — Works Exhibition

What She Weaves Toward

"I weave with the awareness that people can feel, close to them in daily life, the grandeur and power of nature that grew in the mountains. A bag or a tool grows through being used in someone's life. I want to continue weaving things that are strong and beautiful — so that the life received from a tree that lived for decades can be used, and grown, for another hundred years."

To carry one of her pieces is to carry the forest with you — its patience, its seasons, its quiet refusal to be wasted. A small, warm, growing reminder that something older and wilder than any of us is still out there, still offering itself to those willing to pay attention.

編む、編む。 Weave, weave.

Emi Irufune lives and works in Nakagawa, Hokkaido, Japan. All pieces are harvested seasonally from the surrounding forests, processed, dried, and woven entirely by hand.