This top is called “sake cup” and depicts a person holding on tightly to an inverted umbrella during a strong typhoon. The title and the top together form a pun, as the inverted umbrella looks like a sake cup (ochoko) and will collect water from the rain, which looks like sake. When the top is spun, the figure clatters about and looks like it is struggling to hold onto the umbrella in strong winds.
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Hiroi Michiaki: And this is– ah, this is “sake cup.” When it’s raining during a typhoon, on days when the wind is strong, your umbrella goes FWOOOSH and goes like this [inside out]. And [this figure] is doing their best to hold on.
Janell Landis: I received that eight years ago.
Hiroi: Yeah. If you spin this it clatters about and looks like they’re struggling [to hold on].
This work depicts a lion of the lion dance (shishimai 獅子舞), a type of performance believed to have been importing into Japan from China during the Tang Dynasty (618-907). Commonly associated with the Buddha’s birthday, the dance is performed in Japan around the New Year to drive off evil spirits and bring good luck. It may also be performed at other festivals, and the style of dance performed varies by region.
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Hiroi Michiaki: Um, this is the Lion Dance. The New Year’s Lion Dance. If you turn the tail over and over the neck spins about.
What does making wooden tops look like? How do they use the lathe to make this kind of art? Below we feature three videos of Hiroi-sensei and his apprentice, Maeda, at work, along with photographs of the present-day Hiroi workshop where Hiroi and Maeda have worked on the lathe throughout the years. The tops are made by placing a block of wood on the lathe and spinning it rapidly while cutting into the wood with metal tools. Paint is applied to the finished top while it spins on the lathe. Maeda has been Hiroi-sensei’s apprentice for over ten years and will inherit Hiroi-sensei’s shop.
You can listen to and read an interview with Hiroi on his own early apprenticeship here.
These tops are a pair of pheasants, featured together as a couple. Each of the pheasants can be removed from the base and parts of them become individual tops.
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Hiroi Michiaki: This is… ah, this is a sparrow. You unfasten these, and all of them are tops. Chummy sparrows. Hm? They aren’t sparrows. What are these? They’re pheasants. Pheasants. A pheasant couple. When you take these off they’re all tops. Pheasants, too, have all kinds of stories about them.
These tops feature a tengu and okame. Tengu are creatures from Japanese folklore that are considered a kind of kami (god/spirit) or yōkai (supernatural being). Although they are thought to take the form of birds, they are frequently depicted with both bird-like and human characteristics. Beginning around the 14th century, tengu began being depicted with a distinctive long nose. Tengu masks often depict the creatures as having bright red faces and extended, phallic noses. Okame is aｌso popular theme for masks in Japan, often seen in traditional kyogen or dengaku performances and festivals. Okame is a plain-faced woman, featured together here with the tengu probably as symbols of reproduction. These tops, featured as a pair, are spun together as a kind of amusing game. Even though they are shown as a couple, when they are spun the tengu’s nose often points away from the okame, and it looks as if they are not together.
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Hiro Michiaki: This is–
Paula Curtis: This is a tengu, right?
Hiroi: Yeah, this is a tengu and okame. You line them up and when you spin them, they don’t exchange glances. They face the other way. Heh heh heh.
Carving Community: 