T HI S P D F E B O O K CO N TA I N S A L L TH E CONT ENT OF T H E P RINT EDIT ION. NOT ONE WOR D HAS BE E N OMI TTE D.
NEW JAPAN STYLE
NEW JAPAN STYLE
KU INTERNATIONAL ART PRESS KYOTO
LOS ANGELES
BERLIN
W W W. K U A M B I A N C E . C O M
Copyright Š 2008 by Ku Ambiance, LLC. All rights reserved. Except for brief passages in reviews, journalism, or interviews, no part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The publisher does give the right to any person to distribute unaltered PDF Ebook copies for free. We also give the right to quote passages, or reproduce photographs in any review or discussion of the book that attributes Ku Ambiance, the writers and photographers. Use of photographs must credit Maura Lanahan, photographer.
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"Buddhism has the characteristics of what would be expected in a cosmic religion for the future: it transcends a personal God, avoids dogmas and theology; it covers both the natural & spiritual, and it is based on a religious sense aspiring from the experience of all things as a meaningful unity." - Albert Einstein
MAURA LANAHAN, PRINCIPAL PHOTOGRAPHER Almost all of the images in NEW JAPAN STYLE were shot by Maura Lanahan on location in Japan and in her studio in Los Angeles. As an editorial and advertising photographer, Lanahan’s clients include: Ku Ambiance, Nike, Apple, Sarah Graham Jewelry, Zink Magazine and Los Angeles Citybeat. You can also see her photographs and articles in Digital Photo Pro Magazine. She currently lives in Venice, CA. near the beach - where it’s 70 degrees or warmer almost every day of the year. You can see her work online at www.slidebite.com.
HDR Photography Team Some photographs in this book were made using high dynamic range imaging. HDRI is a set of techniques that allows a greater dynamic range of exposures (the range of values between light and dark areas) than normal digital imaging techniques. The intention of HDRI is to accurately represent the wide range of intensity levels found in real scenes ranging from direct sunlight to shadows. In 1997 the technique of combining several differently exposed images to produce a single HDR image was presented to the public by Paul Debevec and his research has since contributed significantly to the popularization of HDRI. HDRI images for this book were shot by an international team of photographers. Contributors featured here include: Jacob Ehnmark, Tokyo, Japan Jani Valtonen, Helsinki, Finland Amanda Cooper, Capetown, South Africa Tomonari Suzuoki, Japan Yevgen Pogorylev, Ukraine
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ABOUT THIS BOOK For over 20 years, the designers at Ku Ambiance have been illuminating the intersections between Japan, America, and Europe. And since 2000, with the start of a new millennium it has been of growing interest to see how the most traditional Japanese arts and crafts – many with traditions of hundreds of years behind them – will fare in the new century. These traditional arts all value the “hand-made” as a primary and naturally good value. At a time when most people experience only machine-made goods often composed of plastic or other artificial materials, to encounter a handmade object made of natural materials and lovingly shaped by a master artist can be a sublime and humbling experience. In Japan, the work of master craftspeople is the pinnacle of aesthetic achievement, and the work ethic of countless hours spent on achieving the “mastery” of craft can be daunting to outsiders. Many of the artists we feature in this book spent decades learning and developing their craft. Some had apprenticeships that lasted twenty years or more. Some practice arts or skills virtually unknown outside Japan, and not fully appreciated except by collectors inthe-know. And some of these artists now find themselves re-inventing while still venerating family traditions of art-manufacture that go back over 400 years. New Japan Style is an exploration of the redevelopment of these very traditional Japanese art forms and crafts into 21st century designs. Nowhere on the planet is the dichotomy between traditions and modernity -- hand-made vs. machine -- more powerfully expressed than in Japan. It’s a culture that venerates the best of hand-made while at the same time loving the idea of computerized robots and ultra-modern factories. New Japan Style showcases unique individual craftspeople, practicing arts that some would scarcely believe still exist, while also investigating the process of these artists launching new ideas and refining the traditional methods onto dynamic new products to meet the sophisticated tastes of a global design market. This book takes the form of a photo-journal, and we let the pictures, for the most part, tell the story, since any one of the arts depicted herein is worthy of a book dedicated to it alone, and more scholarship and commentary than we can possibly fit in these limited pages. This book, therefore, is a survey to allow you to quickly gain an appreciation of how the Japanese arts of the last ten centuries are redefining themselves to be appreciated in the new millennia. – THE EDITORS
Kasuri Kasuri is a Japanese word for fabric that has been woven with fibers dyed specifically to create patterns and images in the fabric. It is an ikat technique. Kasuri is weft ikat; the warp threads are solid color, and the weft thread is resist-tied in a specific pattern and dyed with indigo to form a picture when the cloth is woven. Japanese ikats are generally weft ikats or double ikats. Ikat, or Ikkat, is a style of weaving that uses a resist dyeing process similar to tie-dye on either the warp or weft before the threads are woven to create a pattern or design. A Double Ikat is when both the warp and the weft are tiedyed before weaving. Ikat means “to tie” or “to bind” in the Malay language and has the same root as the words dekat (“close”), lekat (“to stick”), pikat (“to catch”) etc. The word Katt has the same meaning in all of the south Indian languages but there may be no relation. Through common usage, the word has come to describe both the process and the cloth itself. Ikats have been woven in cultures all over the world. In Central and South America, Ikat is still common in Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, Guatemala and Mexico. In the 19th century, the Silk Road desert oases of Bukhara and Samarkand (in what is now Uzbekistan in Central Asia) were famous for their fine silk Uzbek Ikat. India, Japan and several South-East Asian countries have cultures with long histories of Ikat production. Double Ikats can still be found in India, Guatemala, Japan and the Indonesian islands of Bali and Kalimantan. Like any craft or art form, ikats vary widely from country to country and region to region. Designs may have symbolic of ritual meaning or have been developed for export trade. Ikats are often symbols of status, wealth, power and prestige. Perhaps because of the difficulty and time required to make ikats, some cultures believe the cloth is imbued with magical powers.
In Japan, natural deep blue indigo color is obtained from the plants of the species Indigofera Tinctoria. The dye is obtained from the processing the plant’s leaves. They are soaked in water-filled heated vats and fermented in order to convert the sugars naturally present in the plant to the blue dye indigotin. This method has been in use in Japan for several centuries and requires great care in proper temperature and application for the dye to properly stain. Dye from natural plant sources is also called “true indigo” to distinguish it from artificial chemical dyes. Worldwide, indigo has come to greatest fame as a coloring agent for blue jeans, though not all jeans – in fact very few – are dyed from natural plant sources today. In Japan, indigo became especially important in the Edo period (1603-1868) when it was forbidden to use silk, so the Japanese began to import and plant cotton. It was difficult to dye the cotton fiber except with indigo. Even today indigo is very much appreciated as a color for the summer clothing in Japan, as this reflects sky, nature and the blue sea.
Tatsuo Ogawauti
“National Treasure Master Dye Craft”
Cotton fibers are wrapped or left bare to receive dye when vat-dipped. This allows the indigo (and other coloring agents) to either dye the fabric or leave it undyed. The resulting combinations are unlimited and create a vast variety of threads for weaving on looms.
Most modern kasuri are not 100% handwoven. They are produced on antique vintage 1902 powered looms. Despite the machines employed, the human factor is crucial in controlling the looms, and manipulation of the fabric takes place by hand at every level of production.
Couture Kasuri Fabric Fashions
Ku Couture fashions are sculpted from hand-woven Kasuri fabrics, each piece unique and individual, every article custom-tailored to the customer.
Yayoi Koda and her crew of weavers.
Wearing Kasuri is about enjoying life.
Every great work of art has two faces, one toward its own time and one toward the future, toward eternity. — Daniel Barenboim.
Artists of Kyoto
At Kazuo Ouno’s Kungyokudo house of incense, they have been manufacturing the most fine and exotic incense for hundreds of years in a family tradition that understands the subtle ideas of how scent interacts with style and how the refinement of aromas can add a layer of feng shui to any home. While to the uninitiated, the idea of incense costing hundreds of dollars may seem shocking, the Japanese incense connoisseur knows that incense comes in a range of quality and gradation that equals the best champagnes.
I take baths all the time. I'll put on some music and burn some incense and just sit in the tub and think... Wow, life is great right now. –Brian Austin Green
Shinya Oike’s family knows bamboo. They have been making everthing you could ever want out of bamboo. Traditional forms as well as the most experimental innovations in new ideas for re-use, “green” use, bamboo finishes, floors, you name it. If it’s humanly possible to make it out of bamboo, Oike can do it. And, usually it starts by hand. That tool he’s carrying? It’s a kama. Kama are Japanese traditional farming implements similar to a sickle used for reaping crops and also employed as a weapon. The kama has also been used in Chinese martial arts from which the original Okinawan martial art Te(hand) and later Karate(empty hand) styles were influenced by and arguably developed out of. During the annexation of Okinawa by the Satsuma, all traditional weapons were outlawed. But that’s beside the point, since Oike uses his kama to split bamboo. With the same artistry as a martial arts master, of course.
Koichiro Takaoka makes the best futons and pillows in the world, according to the most exacting specifications of traditional craft, materials, and methods. Takaoka’s Japanese futons are flat, about 5 cm (2 in) thick with a super-premium fabric exterior stuffed with (your choice) of cotton or synthetic batting. They are often sold in sets which include the futon mattress (shikibuton), a comforter (kakebuton) or blanket (mĹ?fu), a lightweight summer blanket, and pillow (makura), that is generally filled with durable hypo-allergenic resin beads. Futons are designed to be placed on tatami flooring, and are traditionally folded away and stored in a closet during the day to allow the tatami to breathe and to allow for flexibility in the use of the room. Ideally, futons must be aired in sunlight regularly, especially if not put away during the day, this is to ensure maintaining maximum freshness and life for the natural materials in their construction.
Zen is not some kind of excitement, but concentration on our usual everyday routine.” — Shunryu Suzuki
Naoharu Usami is one of the leading Asian Art Conservators in the entire world. His job entails wrestling with some of the most difficult and delicate materials: paper, fabric, glue, and ink. One mistake and a priceless document that is a thousand years old can be destroyed in an instant, lost for all time. His discipline requires a steady hand, nerves of steel, and an unerring eye for detail.
Tadashi Taniguchi is one part weaver, one part artist, and one (large) part mad scientist. He imagines new possibilities in textile production and built a computercontrolled loom with his bare hands, fabricating parts of the loom from wood & steel as he needed them. The result is a unique robotic loom that can weave the most exquisite patterns imaginable. In operation, Tadashi hand-feeds pure gold metal thread into the loom, in order to create dreamy fabrics of gold, silver, and platinum. His unique vision reinvented a craft centuries old for the next millenium.
Tadashi often makes fine fabrics for Usami.
In Kyoto, all the artists know one another.
Opposite, a finished “kakemono” or hanging wall art scroll. The assembly is by Usami, the fine fabric backing by Tadashi.
In 2007, Usami and Tadashi collaborated with Don Ed Hardy, the internationally celebrated American artist to create some new kakemono representing a new fusion of Hardy’s California-Pop sensibility with the oldest forms of Japanese art. The results are modern kakemono that combine techniques 500 years old with a radical American sensibility.
Continuing an exploration of Asian and particularly Japanese art motifs, that began for him in the 1970’s Don Ed Hardy traveled to Japan in 2006-2008 to work with traditional craftsmen who could take his signature designs onto other mediums, exploring both authentic and traditonal forms as well as the baroque and highly experimental.
Don Ed Hardy
Artist and tattoo designer
Otsuki’s 30-year apprenticeship in carving Noh masks was to Nagasawa Soshin, recognized as a true master in the art. These wooden masks are lovingly carved from raw blocks of juniper wood using only hand tools. A typical mask may take a month or more to carve, another month to paint and properly finish. Otsuki has completed hundreds of masks, many of them embodying the most popular characters from Japanese drama. Yet each mask is absolutely unique, and Otsuki’s job is to find the “true character” hidden in each block of wood. This is not just art, but a spiritual quest.
Toshiko Kojima runs the oldest, largest kimono store in Kyoto. Her operation is the go-to place for the most elite and desirable fabrics. Arguably, the Japanese are in love with patterned fabrics in a way that no one else has ever dared to be. While even the finest of European fashion fabrics tend towards solid colors and sober restraint, the world of kimono fabrics is an explosion of reflective color and formal experiment. These days, Toshiko finds new challenges in customers who wish to adapt these unique fabrics from their original purpose as formal kimonos onto upscale casual, comfortable, modern garments.
Kyoto is a fabric design laboratory filled with constant exploration and discovery.
Takashi Yokoyama makes jewelry by the process of lost-wax casting, sometimes called by the French name of cire perdue. In this process silver and gold jewelry is cast from the artist’s original tiny sculptures. There are many complicated steps in making jewelry this way, each requiring the ultimate in detail-work at a near-microscopic level. Takashi is interested in new possibilities with the lost-wax method, an art over 3000 years old. Recently, he’s discovered unusual red lacquer patinas on the silver that offer a stylish and unique accent.
Eisuke Kizumi uses a blowtorch every day at his workbench crafting fine silver jewelry. You can tell he loves it.
Toshio Arakawa and his son, Youhei Arakawa represent the second and third generation in a family of resin artists. This was a craft begun back in the 1920’s by Youhei’s grandfather who made art pieces from bakelite by hand. Bakelite is a “phenolic resin” material that can be shaped by heating, filing and cutting, making it an ideal material for detailed craftwork. It is durable, colors well, and is long lasting. Phenolics are little used in general consumer products today due to the cost and complexity of production and their delicate nature. It takes a true master of the craft to work bakelite well. Recently, the father-son team have designed a line of “retro-glamour” hair ornaments that invoke bakelite’s retro sensibility, while pushing the art to new levels.
Koichi Taira manages the Ku-USA store. The Ku brand was born in the late 1980’s as a partnership between an American businessman and a Japanese designer. Both were interested in bringing an expanded Japanese aesthetic to the world. Now, after 20 years of remarkable success, Ku-USA is the first Japanese fashion brand to integrate global influences into a new synthesis of values. Ku-USA advocates both an appreciation for traditional high-quality materials as well as a new, urban sophistication that values comfort.
Kota Kosuga’s family knows all about the challenge of living with nature in the modern world. Since the 1860’s, the Kosugas have been making fine hand-finished furniture from the best wood they can find. They also have been involved in a 100+ year movement of Japan from a rural, farm-based economy to one that is based in cities, usually in apartment living. This has created a radical abandonment of some traditional Japanese furniture designs. And also many new opportunities. Kota is interested in finding ways to use the best of the old design ideas for new living spaces.
It is as if there were a natural law which ordained that to achieve this end, to refine the curve of a piece of furniture, or a ship's keel, or the fuselage of an airplane, until gradually it partakes of the elemental purity of the curve of the human. — Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Master Ceramics
Don Ed Hardy traveled to Japan in 2006-2008 to work with the craftsmen at Risogama, one of the oldest ceramics kilns in Japan, and notable for their extremely high skill in painted “blue&white� Imari-style pottery. The works above, created by Hardy are from a large collection of designs he did onsite at Risogama.
Masanori Oda shows the interior of a giant old kiln and a more modern European-style kiln. The pot he holds shows the Oda family crest or “mon.� Historically, Shida pottery was once among the largest producers of handcrafted blue&white porcelain in the entire world.
Bizen-style potters Shusen Shibaoka and his son, Hirokazu Shibaoka create amazingly imaginative forms inspired by raw nature, space, the void and the inexpressible. They are taking the rough-and-raw fired qualities of Bizen to new heights.
Bizen artist Miki Suzuki holds up a favorite piece he created. He likes the unique colors and glazes that can be achieved in the open-flame Bizen kilns. Bizen is most identifiable by its ironlike hardness, reddish brown color, absence of glaze, and markings resulting from wood-burning kiln firing. This artwork is Japan’s oldest pottery making technique, introduced in the Heian period. Bizen clay bodies have a high iron content, and traditionally, much organic matter that is unreceptive to glazing. The clay can take many forms. The surface treatments of Bizen wares are entirely dependent on yohen, or “kiln accidents.” Pine ash produces goma, or ‘sesame seed’ glaze spotting. Rice straw wrapped around pieces creates red and brown scorch marks. The placement of pieces in a kiln causes them to be fired under different conditions, with a remarkably wide variety of different results.
A striking contrast to the raw beauty of Bizen is the complicated and serene shapes of Karatsu artist, Yasuhiro Miwa.
Risogama President Shinji Terauchi loves to experiment with new patterns and surface treatments. A skilled artist himself, he values traditions of craft and talent while also being a fan of modern, clean & simple looks.
His Buddhist master told him to take the name Tai-zan and to devote himself to the beauty of pottery and craft. Today he is inspired by the forms of the earliest Chinese ceramics. Also he quests for an elusive perfect color and glaze he calls “elephant ivory.�
Takehiro Kabashima leads a team of employees at Legnatec, his family-owned, small custom furniture fabrication facility. The facility uses the latest computer-aided design tools, but fit and finish is by skilled craftspeople. Takehiro loves a challenge and new designs and finishes are constantly being explored. One of their favorite woods to work with is from the Camphor tree, a large evergreen tree that grows up to 20-30 metres tall and has a pleasant “spicy� odor. The tree is native to southern Japan, where it is sustainably cultivated for timber production.
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New Japan Style is an exploration of the redevelopment of traditional Japanese art forms and crafts into 21st century designs. Nowhere on planet Earth is the dichotomy between traditions and modernity more powerfully expressed than in Japan. It’s a culture that venerates the best of hand-made while at the same time loves the idea of computerized robots. New Japan Style showcases unique individual craftspeople, practicing arts that some would scarcely believe still exist, while also investigating the process of these artists launching new ideas and refining the traditional methods onto dynamic new products to meet the sophisticated tastes of a global design market.
KU INTERNATIONAL ART PRESS KYOTO
LOS ANGELES
W W W. K U A M B I A N C E . C O M
BERLIN
D I G I TA L E D I T I O N S F R E E