The Gold of Japan: Gild Your Own Chopsticks with Kanazawa Gold Leaf
Learn how Japan’s gold is made, then gild a pair of chopsticks to keep — or to give
Love the golden glow of kintsugi? Japan’s gold tradition runs deeper. In Kanazawa, artisans have been beating gold for more than four hundred years — until it is one ten-thousandth of a millimetre thick, thin enough to lift on a breath and light enough to disappear the moment a fingertip touches it. Almost all of Japan’s gold leaf, kinpaku, still comes from that one city. Artists know gold leaf as a material, but most people have never touched it. This class puts it in your hands.
In this hands-on class you will:
1. Learn where Kanazawa gold leaf comes from — its history, and how a lump of gold is melted, beaten and rested until it becomes a sheet you can see through
2. Handle the leaf yourself and pick up the artisans’ techniques for cutting it, crumpling it and laying it down
3. Design your own pair of chopsticks — a clean band of gold, cut shapes, scattered flakes, a spiral, or something nobody has tried yet — and apply the leaf your way
Your instructor seals each pair with a protective topcoat at the end, and you take home the chopsticks you designed in their own box — to keep for your own table, or to give. Gold leaf cannot be lifted once it is down, so every pair is a one-take piece and no two ever come out the same.
Beginner-friendly — no experience with gold leaf is needed. All materials are included.
PRICE
$80 / person
DURATION
2 hours
LOCATION
91 E 3rd Street, New York, NY 10003
Inside the class
A short, unhurried two hours. You will hear where the gold comes from and how it is made, then spend the rest of the class with the leaf in your hands — cutting, placing, pressing, and deciding for yourself what your chopsticks should look like.
Four ways to design yours
These are the four the artisans use. Combine them, layer them, or ignore all four and invent your own — that is the point of the class.
Flat
Cut the leaf to the width you want, then roll the chopstick along it for a clean, solid band of gold.
Shapes
Cut the leaf into stars, hearts, dots — whatever you like — and press the pieces on one by one.
Scattered
Crumple the leaf between your palms until it breaks into fine flakes, then dust them across the surface.
Spiral
Cut a narrow strip and wind it around the stick. The angle you hold it at decides how wide the spiral runs.
What you take home
One pair of chopsticks, designed by you, sealed and boxed — real Japanese gold, in a design no one else has. Keep them for yourself or give them as a gift. Let them rest a couple of days before their first meal.
Good to know
- Gold leaf sticks to skin on contact, so you will work with the backing paper, scissors and a brush rather than bare fingers. The instructor will show you how.
- Once the leaf is down it cannot be removed — part of why each pair is one of a kind.
- Finished chopsticks are not dishwasher or dryer safe, and should rest a couple of days before you eat with them.
- Is this kintsugi? No — kintsugi mends broken ceramics with lacquer and gold. This class is about the gold itself: Kanazawa gold leaf, applied to chopsticks.
Private and group sessions are available upon request. For inquiries, please email us at class@resobox.com. Planning a team or group event? Learn more about our corporate & group workshops.
About the Instructor
Hideko Koyama
Hideko Koyama grew up in Nanao, in Ishikawa — the same prefecture as Kanazawa — among household Buddhist altars finished in gold leaf and metalwork. She studied Japanese literature, history and culture, lived in Kansai, Kanazawa, London and Tokyo, and has spent the last thirty years in the New York area. She fell for Kanazawa gold leaf after taking a class at Hakuichi in Kanazawa, and now leads workshops to share it with people outside Japan.
