Kodo Arts show on April 30-May 8

Kodo Arts Japanese Antiques will hold a fund raiser for the Japanese earthquake relief effort donating part of the proceeds from their upcoming annual spring Japanese antiques sale at the Kodo Arts Warehouse in Nevada City from April 30-May 8 to the Japanese Red Cross.

The Grass Valley Taiko Drum Group will also perform in front of the Kodo Arts Warehouse Sunday afternoon May 1 to help raise funds. A donations box will be set up and ways to directly donate will also be available. Next door Nevada City Framing run by Katy Anderson will also be holding a fund raiser May 1 of art to support the Nevada City High School pool. The Festival like atmosphere will be for two great causes.

Kodo Arts has bought many pieces of furniture from the hard hit Sendai area in northern Japan in the past as well as pottery from the Mashiko ceramics area, also in the north. The Sendai furniture is famous for their fantastic metalwork and lacquered chests.

Kodo Arts has two chests and it is unlikely that they will see many more. Many of the Mashiko kilns were destroyed by the earthquake so Kodo Arts will hold a silent auction for a piece of Mashiko pottery and donate the money to Mashiko ceramic artists. It is a devastaing blow to the art world.

Kodo Arts owners, Jake Costello and his wife Yuko, shuttle twice a year between Kyoto, Japan, where they have a country house and a warehouse, to bring their treasures to California. Luckily the Kyoto area seems to have been spared major damage.

In between they are scouring auctions and markets in the Kyoto area to collect Japanese antique furniture, folk art, home décor, art, ceramics, textiles, etc. and ship them by container to their warehouse in Nevada City, near Lake Tahoe. They will return to Japan May 11 and hopefully continue to recycle more Japanese folk art in the future.

Twice a year, in the spring and autumn, Kodo Arts opens their transformed warehouse, for 9 days only each time, into a museum -like gallery atmosphere of 18th,19th and 20th century Japanese culture. It is like stepping into an old Japanese inn.

Otherwise the warehouse returns to being a Japanese wholesale warehouse (closed to the public) where Costello runs his internet operations and does shows in Southern California at the Southern California Artists Association in Laguna Beach every spring.

Many of the pieces are from old Japanese houses that have been replaced in a modern rush to smaller more modern abodes. As the Japanese turn toward modern conveniences, fantastic art, ceramics, textiles, become available to a growing Japanese collecting market in the world. They are truly a cultural monument to an era of unsurpassed craftsmanship and attention to detail.

Kodo Arts puts this show on as much as an exhibition as a sale. It is a grand opportunity for a glimpse into another aesthetic and way of life.