Author: Anne Ewbank / Source: Atlas Obscura
Amezaiku is the traditional Japanese practice of molding hot candy into artistic shapes before it hardens. This feat, traditionally accomplished by experienced craftsmen in front of a crowd, was once thought to be a fading art. But it’s been given a second life by social media and new brick-and-mortar stores.
Until recently, American audiences could watch an amezaiku artisan at work in an unlikely place: the Japan Pavilion inside Disney World’s Epcot. Known to the public as “Candy Miyuki” or, more recently, as “Candy5,” the artist deftly twisted figurines out of candy there for 17 years. Miyuki left Disney in 2013, and is now a freelance candy artist. Just last week, she made sweet treats for the preview of a Yayoi Kusama exhibition at the Tampa Museum of Art, riffing on both that artist’s famed silhouette as well as her “dot” motif.
Miyuki’s primary medium is glutinous starch syrup, which is heated to 200°F and then pulled like taffy. Each piece starts with a golf ball-sized lump of hot candy impaled on a stick. With food coloring and a few judicious snips from custom-made Japanese candy scissors, she can produce anything from a purple pig to a glittering dragon in mere minutes.
The road to sugar stardom was bumpy. According to Miyuki, she is the first female amezaiku artist to receive formal training in the practice. 25 years ago, while living in Japan, she went through a divorce. Needing a job, she prayed every night for guidance from her long-passed father, a former newspaper writer. Then, picking up a newspaper one day, she came across an interview with an amezaiku artist. “This is my new job,” she remembers thinking. To this day, she considers it a “nice message” from her father.
So Miyuki set about finding a candy-making teacher in Tokyo, which was a challenge during the pre-internet era. Miyuki ended up calling her local police station to ask if…
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