SHIZQ bowls have a unique design that makes the most of cedar's straight grain.

Cedar wood has a reddish core and white outer rings when cross-cut.
For construction material, which is the most common use for cedar, this color difference has been considered a defect, as it's not beautiful.

But at SHIZQ, we saw it as a unique characteristic of cedar, and came up with a design where the annual rings, changing from red to white, are layered.



However, processing wood into such horizontal stripes is considered unconventional in the woodworking industry.
Especially when it comes to processing rough and soft cedar into a circular shape.
We asked many woodworking shops to process it for us, but we were all turned away. They said it was easier to process along the grain, more efficient, and that's how it had always been done, calling us "woodworking amateurs."

The birth of such an unconventional cedar bowl was due to an encounter with a skilled craftsman who had been doing woodturning for many years.

 
Mr. Miyatake runs a woodworking shop. He is a veteran of 50 years, dedicated solely to woodturning.
He is one of the few remaining master woodturners (kijishi) in Tokushima.
To bring out SHIZQ's wood grain, special blades were needed, so he took up blacksmithing himself and created the cutting blades from scratch – a true craftsman.
He beautifully finished the cedar, which had been rejected everywhere else, with his remarkable skill.

"I believe all living trees are the same, so if I'm asked, 'Can you work with this wood?' I'll do it," says Mr. Miyatake.

 
His challenge-driven spirit, overflowing with love and a life spent with wood, turned the impossible into the possible, giving birth to the "SHIZQ bowl," which cannot be found anywhere else in the world.