Tanaka leads me upstairs for an hourlong workshop. The oldest existing brushes in Japan (housed in the cityвЂ™s Shoso-in repository at Todaiji temple) date to that period. Ink and brushes were employed to record extensive histories, copy sutras and draft laws. After Empress Genmei established the city of Nara as JapanвЂ™s imperial capital in the eighth century - modeling its bureaucracy and architecture on that of ChinaвЂ™s Tang Dynasty - the monarchy used writing and religion to consolidate power. In the fourth or fifth century, Buddhist monks, traders, government officials and immigrants brought Chinese writing to Japan (via the Korean Peninsula), which continued to spread with Buddhism in the sixth century. вЂњFudeвЂќ roughly translates to вЂњbrush,вЂќ but Tanaka uses the word only for the style of calligraphy and ink-painting brushes she makes in a tradition with roughly 1,300 years of history in Nara, the landlocked prefecture below Kyoto. Tanaka is one of seven remaining masters of crafting Nara fude. With tools so old they are no longer in production, itвЂ™s the workshop of a shokunin (master craftsperson), but as cozy as an auntieвЂ™s living room. Inside, brushes in every size - some fine enough to paint a dollвЂ™s eyelashes, others broad enough to draw characters as tall as the person writing them - line the walls. I follow a stone path down the flower-lined alleyway and duck under a mustard-colored noren curtain and into her tiny showroom. Among the low, tile-roofed wooden houses of the historic Nara-machi neighborhood of the city of Nara, a calligraphy brush as big as a broom marks the gate to Chiyomi TanakaвЂ™s shop.

Memory craft 6000 for sale