After Kitamura Yasutaka finished high school, he had to decide which path to follow — his options were either to pursue a career as an artist or to become a professional chef. Perhaps not surprisingly, Yasutaka enrolled at the Tokyo University of the Arts and later furthered his studies at the Yamanashi Prefectural Institute of Gemology and Jewelry Art. After all, an affinity to crafts and art has been running in his family for four generations, dating back to the late 19th century, and was something familiar to the Japanese artist from a young age.

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