Uda Masashi is a wood worker who crafts tableware and home items from locally and responsibly sourced Japanese wood.  
 

The pieces he creates are relaxed, friendly and warm, often round-edged or warped, and make people smile. They naturally produce an organic relationship and emotional tie with the users.  Some are dyed with natural dye, including Japanese indigo, and also combined with wax technique.  The tableware items are treated with plants oil and food safe. Cherry, walnut, chestnut are the most used variety of wood.
 

Uda studied design and furniture making at polytechnic and worked as stage setter and furniture maker. Later he found his passion on rather smaller functional objects and set up his own studio which he named Monom.
 

Studio Monom is tucked in a quiet mountain village in Chichibu in Japan, where many people travel to see Uda and buy his new pieces on occasional open studio days.