Think: phyllo dough.
That’s how Minneapolis-based designer George Sawyer describes mokume gane to prospective buyers. Think of it as pastry, he tells them, thin layers of metal of various types, colors, and karats, laminated together and then folded again and again to form patterns resembling wood grain. Sawyer provides the pastry analogy so that buyers might better understand that what they are considering is something truly special. It is Lesson One in educating the consumer-the first in a series of instruction he imparts again and again.
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