Japanese Sorghum Mini Brush Indigo

‘Kōgei’ is the Japanese culture of craftsmanship, which treasures the beauty of utilitarian objects made with natural materials.

Azusa Fukushima is part of a new generation of Japanese artisans, preserving and reinvigorating these ancient craft techniques.

Made from hard-wearing sorghum grass, these brushes are both functional and beautiful. Azusa herself sows and harvests the sorghum crop from grain in the Ibaraki countryside. Each broom is then skilfully hand-wound using traditional techniques, and bound with cotton thread coloured using natural dye: Japanese indigo, persimmon, madder...The final shape evokes the original corn from which it came. It’s the full cycle, from ground to crop to broom and eventually back to the earth.

Small, very useful for nooks, crannies and tight spots, and each brush has an individual design woven into the handle.