Tatami-mat Maker

Tatami-mat Maker presents the craftsman who created the rush-covered floor mats that defined the living spaces of traditional Japanese domestic architecture. The tatami maker's craft required the careful cutting and binding of fresh rush (igusa) to a rice-straw core, producing the clean-scented, precisely proportioned mats that organized the spatial logic of Japanese rooms. Mori's documentation of this trade honored a craft that was as fundamental to Japanese domestic life as any, and his rendering of the craftsman at work captured both the physical skill and the aesthetic judgment that distinguished quality tatami production.