If you've ever been fortunate enough to attend a tea ceremony, then you know that within the simplicity of movements, the quiet beauty of the room and the refined elegance of the utensils, there is a deep world where the moment becomes living art.
A tea master — chajin — pays attention with concentrated focus to all aspects of the ceremony, such as what type of scroll to hang, the season, the nature of the guests and possibly a theme for the event. To choose and match all the needed utensils for a Tea ceremony — and there are many — the host must be as creative as the makers of the utensils to deliver a performance that allows everything and everyone to harmonize. This is no easy task and takes years of study and practice.
If you happened to be a tea master for a day, what combination of utensils would you use? There's now a splendid opportunity to test your own sensibilities at the National Museum of Modern Art, Crafts Gallery's current exhibition "About the Tea Ceremony — A Viewpoint on Contemporary Kogei-Studio Crafts," which shows until Nov. 23.