The word Japan refers to the country of Japan, however, when it starts with a small j, (japan), it becomes the noun lacquer or the verb lacquering. The art form of lacquering is one of Japan’s most traditional and cherished methods of creating handcrafts.

In Japan, lacquer is not only used for artistic purposes, but for every day uses as well, for example, chopsticks can be made from lacquer, and so can various portions of temples and shrines.

Raw lacquer (Urushi) is a sap collected from Japanese urushi trees. Only a cup of urushi sap is collected from a tree in a year. The raw sap is heated before any other procedure takes place. After the sap is warmed to the correct temperature, it is filtered, mixed, concentrated, and finally colored by adding metals or natural colorings. After that is completed, it is painted onto a base (usually made of wood), and then dried and polished. It is necessary to repeat these steps about twenty to thirty times; in order to complete one piece of lacquer it takes over a month, sometimes over six. Although this is a long and tedious process, it must be done carefully, for it is essential to make a high quality lacquer in order to create a first class product.