Kesurokai

Profile: Robin Wood

Robin Wood's craft skills are wide ranging. He is perhaps best known for is turning on a traditional foot-powered lathe and the book he wrote about the history of the craft The Wooden Bowl. We teach spoon carving courses together ... he's my husband in case you hadn't figured that out! He also uses traditional timber framing techniques to make bridges, stiles, gates, benches and other countryside furniture.

He is also passionate about preserving and promoting traditional skills and set up the Heritage Crafts Association as an advocacy body for traditional heritage crafts. Working in partnership with Government and key agencies, it provides a focus for craftspeople, groups, societies and guilds, as well as individuals who care about the loss of traditional crafts skills, and works towards a healthy and sustainable framework for the future.

His motivations for attending Kesurokai are twofold. Firstly, from a craft skills point of view he is keen to have the opportunity to work alongside and share skills with the other craftsmen, both European and Japanese. Secondly he is seeking inspiration for ways in which the Heritage Crafts Association might find new ways of passing skills from one generation to the next, a tradition the Japanese have held onto for longer than in the UK.

Full details about Robin here on his web site and here on his blog.

Profile: Cormac Seekings

Cormac Seekings' passion is the use of roundwood and minimally converted timbers in both framed and notched log carpentry.

Based in Scotland, he is one of the four UK attendees at this years' Kesurokai, inspired by the experience of working with the Japanese carpentry group at the 2007 torii gateway event. Afterwards he will be spending some weeks on a study tour of vernacular Minka. 

The tradition of Minka farmhouses is fertile ground for studying both framed and notched log carpentry, combined in a different way and with a very different perspective on both structure and joinery, from that in northern Europe.

Cormac believes that regional Minka, from cold and humid/cold parts of Japan, can inform aspects of a new vernacular of wooden craft-building in Scotland, and is keen to help develop this as part of his involvement with self-builder assistance and skill training for low impact buildings.

Profile: Hannes Schnelle

Hannes is the main organisor of Kesurokai from the European side, having also been responsible for the events in 2005 and 2007 in Germany.

After undertaking a three-year cabinet making apprenticeship, Hannes became a journeyman, traveling away from his home town in Germany both to share his skills and learn new ones. His travels took him to Japan where in 2003 he became the last temple carpenter apprentice to the highly respected craftsman, Sugimura san who was the originator for Kesurokai in Japan. During this period Hannes learned the Japanese language, became accepted by the craft community, and now regularly returns to work there.

Since 2006 he has worked in Germany producing traditional Japanese carpentry with a European influence. This involves small-scale projects such as shōji, traditional Japanese sliding screen doors, and large-scale timber framing projects. He also regularly teaches traditional tool skills and tool sharpening, as well as demonstrating and giving presentations about his work.

He has been working closely with Amemiya san on this year's Chisana Kesurokai since 2008 and you can see pictures of him working with the Japanese team on their web site (in Japanese, unless you look at it via something like Google translate).

Profile: Nicola Wood

I guess I should have introduced myself first, but better late than never! I am involved in this project because I am a designer and researcher ... and married to a green woodworker, but more about that later.

My involvement with Kesurokai is primarily as media recorder. I shall be photographing and videoing and, technology permitting, blogging live from Japan during the main event in August. On my return I plan to make a short documentary film about the project.

Now a bit more about my background; I am primarily what is known as a multimedia designer which, roughly speaking, is designing things that appear on a computer, but I also work a great deal with video too. My main area of interest is craft skills; how they are learned, how they are taught and how multimedia can be used to record them and help them pass from one person to another.

Whilst much of my work has been based in the world of academia (I have gained an MA and PhD whilst doing it), it is also immensely practical. I have spent many hours hanging out in craftsmen's workshops observing with my video camera and notebook. I have spent many hours with learners, making and testing learning materials, sketching and annotating to understand what is needed to pass on complex skills.

The origin of all this is my partner, Robin Wood, who is well known both for his traditional turning / green woodworking and his campaigning for Heritage Crafts ... but more of that in another post! Working alongside Robin has both given me a unique insight into craft practices and given me the opportunity to develop my own skills in Scandinavian-style spoon carving with knives and axes.

Bringing all my interests together, we have developed a very successful programme to teach spoon carving as a short course and have been delighted by how many students carry on carving after learning with us. The learning materials I have developed during these courses are available on the internet for those attending courses and will hopefully be made into a book before the end of the year.

There is more about me on my web site, including links to things I have designed, my video on youTube ... and even academic papers!

Profile: Amemiya san

Kunihiro  Amemiya, a highly respected 'hewing master', is the main organiser for Chisana Kesurokai in Japan.

He is an expert in traditional carpentry techniques and runs his own business building and repairing traditional houses. He was involved in the two previous European Kesorokai events, which were his inspiration to bring the European carpenters back to Japan for this event.

He started preparations in August 2008 and a huge amount of work has been done since; preparing the ground, selecting and preparing the timber, organising funding and planning permission. Amemiya san maintains a wonderful photo blog documenting progress on site; in Japanese or English via Google translate (click on 'activities' to see the photos).

The site, in the countryside NE of Kōshū City, Yamanashi Prefecture, is special to him, being near his place of birth, but it was greatly overgrown. The bamboo has now been cleared and an old building there made into a base for the carpenters. If you explore the blog you will find wonderful pictures of them felling trees and processing the timber, and also cooking and eating together.

This is part of what makes Kesurokai so special. Not only do the carpenters work together, sharing their skills, but they also live together, sharing food and conversation. This leads to real insight and understanding of each others' cultures overcoming the language barriers.

To finish, here is some video taken at the 2005 Kesurokai by Robin and edited by myself:

... and there is more video here of Amemiya san using a Japanese saw to cut a trunk into slabs.

Who's coming?

Today I got an up to date contact list with people who have definitely confirmed they can come to Japan.

At the moment there are 23 of us; 3 from UK (Nicola Wood, Robin Wood and Cormac Seekings), plus 1 Belgian, 2 Swedish, and 16 German. We are the lucky ones who can underwrite our own expenses if we don't raise enough money through grants.

Sadly, Petr Růžička's group from Czechoslovakia who would like to come are not as financially secure and must obtain grants before they can book which might make their flights more expensive. The team's hewing power will be greatly depleted if they are not successful in their fund raising.

Once I have had the chance to get in touch with everyone, I will post some details about individual people and what they do.

First team meeting

With the plans at the Japanese end being well underway, funding for their side of project has been obtained from the "Green Business Fund" and planning permission has been applied for, the European team met on 16 January to discuss their plans and funding opportunities. The German delegation gathered at Hannes' home and those from further afield 'visited' using Skype -  a laptop computer and a data projector enabling them to talk to the rest of the group!

The initial plans were agreed:

• dates 7-21 August 2010 location nr Enzan, Yamanashi Prefecture, Japan
• around 40 Japanese craftsmen will attend
• around 30 European craftsmen have expressed an interest in attending (2 French, 8 Czech, 3 UK, 1 Swedish, 15 German, 1 Dutch) plus Nicola as photographer/video recorder
• the Japanese delegation will lead the building of a tea house
• the European delegation will lead the building of a pavilion with barbecue area and table football facilities
• the buildings will be temporary and will travel around colleges in Japan after the event

The Japanese will arrange to collect the European delegation from the airport, take them to the site and provide subsidised food and accommodation. Hannes will organise a group booking for flights to Tokyo to obtain the best price. Everyone will look for funding opportunities within their own countries.