Friday morning at 08:00…a small group of people meeting in a parking lot…who’d have guessed that we could possibly travel 150 miles in a loop around the entire San Francisco Bay in one short day…we all introduced ourselves, and I let them know the itinerary and what to expect. The day ended up being a revelation on the perseverance and persistence of early Japanese craftsmen. Read More …
The flurry of movement and the excitement of the competition usually hides something quite different which has been evolving over time and is far from center stage. Many of those who participated in the 2019 El Cerrito event probably saw the wide plane blade sitting on Sayuri’s sales table all day Saturday. What they didn’t know was that the buzz around that blade was centered on one man who had made the long journey to California to demonstrate his blacksmithing skills along with two other smiths. His journey actually started in his garage several years earlier when he decided to fool around with knives and Damascus steel. Read More …
Exploring the resilience of traditional Japanese structures. The question of what techniques were employed early-on to allow the evolution and systematic improvements to the joinery which eventually would resist jolts and winds, for tens of centuries. Read More …
Two travelers coming from Japan to share with us their experiences working on traditional buildings with traditional tools and materials. But that is not all they are involved with. There is a growing movement in Japan to push for recognition of the traditional building arts as UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage (of Humanity). That effort is outlined in the following interview conducted by Yann Giguère. Read More …
When the nation of Japan viewed the devastation and clean-up efforts after the Great East Japan Earthquake of 2011, many people came to recognize the necessity to reduce non-recyclable content in construction. Nearly 100% of new construction materials could NOT be recycled. Whereas the traditional buildings, with tatami, wood and tile, could be quickly cleaned-up without environmental costs, the plastic and chemical remains of the modern construction needed to be carefully filtered and sequestered to protect the environment from becoming polluted with complex chemical residues which mix together producing unknown future effects. The cost of the clean-up after disasters like Earthquakes has become part of the conversation in Japan centering around how to bring about healthy sustainable environments. Read More …
When I started thinking about writing an article for this newsletter, I had so many ideas to explore, but the topic that seemed to have to most potential to make a difference for the community was the frame of mind that we bring to our work.
I have been working with wood and metal since I took my first shop classes in junior high school. I was always fascinated by the process of turning a raw piece of material into a desired object. I have had the pleasure of learning from some excellent teachers and co-workers, and have applied that learning for about 40 years Read More …
Because of the authentic buildings, the Gardens hold an important historic place in Japanese American cultural exchange. In 1980, the City of Saratoga (which owns the Hakone Estate) invested in renovating the Garden guesthouse and converted the rooms into two rooms suitable for teaching tea ceremony. Beginning in 1981 the rooms began to be used as teaching locations for San Francisco Bay Area tea schools. Three days a week classes are convened in one or more of the four tea rooms now located at Hakone. Read More …
In February 2018, eleven volunteers from our organization helped the Hakone Foundation build the first formal public tea garden in the San Francisco Bay area. For the past twelve years tea organizations have used the re-located Japanese tea house in the garden for yearly gatherings, so the history of its creation and relocation is well known to those who study tea ceremony. Hakone is a public garden and each year more than 15,000 people visit the traditional stroll garden built 100 years ago as a private estate–now run by the non-profit Hakone Foundation, set up to preserve the garden and spread the Japanese traditional culture in Saratoga. Read More …
In this article I’ll describe how I came to build a model of a roof bracket from the Bell Tower Gate at the Japanese Tea Garden in San Francisco and how the model is being used to highlight the wonders of East Asian joinery for the Garden’s many visitors.
At the entrance to San Francisco’s Japanese Tea Garden stands the Bell Tower Gate. Thousands of visitors pass through every day, under a heavy tile roof supported by traditional brackets. Rebuilt in the 1980s, the Gate’s predecessor had been in place from the Garden’s very beginnings as George Turner Marsh’s Japanese Village in the 1894 California Midwinter International Exposition. Read More …
The Kezurou-kai organization is awesome! How great is it to be able to get together and share our interest in traditional Japanese woodworking? I have found my tribe and I want to see that tribe grow!
I tell anyone I can about the group, and how incredible Japan’s hand tool tradition is. I tell them about the blacksmithing, the sharpening stones and the translucent shavings. Most of the woodworkers I talk with show an interest and some, I can tell, have that same spark inside, that love of the blade; another member of the tribe. Read More …
