Philosophy

Since ancient times in Iwami, one of the most sacred lands in Japan, people have dug deep into the earth searching for the divine. Within the darkness, they found light and the hidden riches of the mountains.

This is the land where I was raised.

I learned to walk among the nurseries, playing beneath the shade of cherry blossoms. Following my father into the mountains, I have spent my entire life learning to live in harmony with the forest and the great Gono River.

As times change, these vital landscapes and their rich histories are quietly forgotten, replaced by the modern world.

But my hands remember. As I shape the “Forest Clay,” I awaken its history and wisdom, honoring the spirit of the forest, the riaver, and the mountains.

My hands carry a passing torch, connecting the past, the present, and our shared future.

Michiyasu Okamoto— 岡本道康

木漏れ木

KOMOREGI

Set in the historic city of Nara, Okamoto’s atelier rests within a restored kominka, a traditional Japanese home. Here, time moves softly, sunlight filters gently through the trees, resting on a quiet river that feeds the nearby rice fields.

He names his sanctuary Mori-no-Nendo—the Forest Clay atelier.

In this quiet setting, doll maker Michiyasu Okamoto creates gentle, heartwarming figurines. He crafts them using fine cedar shavings that fall to the floor of a 100-year-old chopstick workshop in the deep Yoshino Mountains.

Born in the ancient cedar forests of the Yoshino, these discarded wooden shavings are given a second life. Okamoto gathers them and mixes them with local earth to create a unique clay—a craft rooted in the ancient wisdom of Yoshino Mountain and a deep harmony with nature.

What was once part of a sacred, mythic forest is reborn into a handmade doll.

Okamoto weaves the traditional phrase Komorebi (sunlight filtering through leaves) with the wisdom of the trees to create his own word: Komoregi.

It is in this exact spirit that every doll is born.