Jusaburo Tsujimura studio

Nanette and I are in Japan right now. Today we went to one of my idols Jusaburo Tsujimura's studio in Tokyo. We ran into him on the way to his studio and took a picture with him. We were not allowed to take photos inside his shop, but we saw a fantastic display of his incredible creations in the glass cases. We were just mesmerized by the total visual overload. 

Anyway, he noticed a tortoise hairpin Nanette was wearing in her hair. I explained to him how much she loved her hairpin. Then, unexpectedly, he started searching in his desk drawer and found a couple of gorgeous tortoise pins and gave them to Nanette as a gift! How generous of him, we couldn't believe how lucky we were! I managed to find a few pictures online of him working in the studio as well as some of his breathtaking dolls. You can see them at the end of this post.

The entrance to his studio.

Nanette and I with the artist.

These are the tortoise hairpins he gave Nanette!

He was very frail. When I asked him if he was still doing his doll making workshops, he told me that he was going to relocate his studio to Hiroshima prefecture this year. He said he was over 80 years old now and wanted to live in his hometown. He is going to do his workshops there once he gets settled. I told him maybe I would take his workshop in Hiroshima. He was a very sweet gentleman.