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フォークトイにめざめることになったきっかけが２つあります。

１つがこの王子稲荷の狐のお面。数年前、締切で会社に泊まり込んでいる中、息抜きで出かけたのが出会いでした。本書では、モデルの蓮花ちゃんぬかぶってもらっています。狐の行列は、古くはないですが、広重の絵にも出て来る有名な行事。

実は本書を通じて、こうした日本を見直す民俗的な世界への関心につながっていけば、という想いがあります。大晦日に行われます。

もう一つのきっかけは、私の地元にたいへんな蒐集家がいたということです。その数、もうかないません。自分には到底真似できない、そんな人たちの活動に惹かれると同時に、そんな仕事をきちんと紹介していきたいと思います。http://folk-toys-nippon.tumblr.com/post/123435395

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There are two factors that has brought me to Japanese Folk Toys.

One is the event “Kitsune no Gyoretsu”, a fox parade, held on New Year’s Eve in Oji, Kita-ku, Tokyo. A few years ago, I met several wonderful papie-mache fox mask made by the people living there. Every men & women visiting this event buy it and join in the parade putting the mask on their face or on their head. The atmosphere of parade was so mysterious. I was very surprised to find such good event remains in the center of Tokyo. But that’s why the fox masks are also conserved until now in the event.

The other is that a great collector of folk toys lived in my hometown. He is a man born in Kashiwazaki-shi, Niigata. A few years ago, I knew such a great men existed in my hometown in Meiji Era. The amount of his collection is so numerous. You can see some part of them in the museum “Chigono-ya”. But that time I was shocked I couldn’t achieve such great job by myself. So I was interested in what part of folk toys attracted him so much and then I had to tell it to more people today as a book. That’s why most folk toys selected in our book are not new ones, but vintage ones.