An interview with Hiro Yamazaki

On forty years of arranging, and the long apprenticeship of attention.

We meet for the second time in a small tea house behind his studio. He has agreed to a longer conversation, on the condition that we do not record it. I take notes by hand, slowly, and he waits for me to finish each sentence before beginning the next.

The long apprenticeship

'The first ten years,' he says, 'I was learning to see the flower. The next ten, to see the vase. The ten after that, to see the room. I am still learning to see the room.'

In my craft there is no mastery. There is only a longer and longer apprenticeship.

Forty-eight minutes

When the tea is finished he stands, bows slightly, and returns to his studio. The interview, such as it was, has lasted forty-eight minutes. I will think about it for years.