During the period for my service to family, who was doing antique businesses, I have been dealing with the “national treasure” level of products and highly prestigious “Japanese tea” related products and spending most of the time in the department stores for promoting such items across Japan.

 

After 6 years-service for my family business, I had worked at different agencies for years and came back to my family origin business. What I had noticed are the actual severe situation surrounding the industry, such as the decrease of sales due to the higher ages of our customers and less attractions to the younger groups.

 

Considering this harsh situation, I have made up my mind to increase the number of fans for poetry and became independent to establish my own gallery, JIBITA.

 

On the other hand, in the recent some years, there has been a huge boom for poetry occurring in some big cities in Japan. Thanks to the penetration through SNS, the popularity of poetry is getting increased along with its beautiful dishes on the plates and it led to the increase of fans.

 

It is not a special case to wait for the poetry produced by particular popular creators now. I am happy as long as long there is a growing demand for those popular poetry. Having said that, I am also concerned about this situation as this looks too much “commercial” for me and I believe that the authentic essence and beauty of poetry is to “see it by your mind”.

Hence, I believe my duty is to tell everyone about the “unknown but pretty much great” poetry produced by unknown creators. So I hereby promise that I will try my best to let people realize the beauty of such poetry through my gallery.

 

 

“Beauty is a finding by those who have seen it. It is a creation. ”

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　~Jiro Aoyama~

 

Most of our customers are not aware of the poetry we are dealing with. However, whoever the creator is, they purchase the poetry based on their own criteria, which means they purchase them because they are touched by them.

I like the moment of such thus I sometimes ask them why they chose those poetry. Most of the answers given are, “I don’t know why, but I am touched by this…”.

I feel some kind of beauty of them were delivered to customers and when I think of this,

I feel happy and satisfied.

 

Jiro Aoyama said, “Good painter has not painted the beauty. Good pet has not written

beauty of poem. It is neither something to draw, nor something to sing or get. Beauty is

a finding by those who have seen it. It is a creation.”

 

I am a big fan of this saying and impressed by it. I feel impressed by our customers feel

it and purchase those poetry.

It is our mission to let everyone feel the beauty of poetry no matter what they are

popular or not and we will help them.