Honma Hideaki

HONM A HIDEAKI

Big Wave, 2015, 17.25 × 17.25 × 16.5 inches

Snail, 2016, 24.75 × 32 × 8.5 inches 2

3

ARTIST STATEMENT

In bamboo art, one usually learns traditional basket making before moving on to making bamboo sculpture. A student would learn the entire process of making a basket from start to finish. Contrarily, I started my artistic career late in life when I began assisting in my father Honma Kazuaki’s studio. He was one of the best-known bamboo sculptors in Japan and, at the same time, he owned a successful bamboo craft manufacturing business. Until the early 1990s, tourism in Sado Island, where we lived, was thriving, and Kazuaki’s bamboo brooches in particular were extremely popular. At the height of the business, he had a few dozen workers making a variety of bamboo articles and souvenirs that he’d designed. In 1986, I started helping with material preparation. The production studio was similar to a factory assembly line: some workers split bamboo, some did dye work, and some wove the strips. As Kazuaki’s oldest assistants began retiring, I was eventually given full responsibility for preparing (splitting, cutting, beveling) the material for bamboo brooch production and also bent a lot of nemagari, a type of dwarf bamboo, for other small souvenir items. By splitting and bending bamboo every day for many hours, I became good at those skills, but I didn’t learn how to do anything else.

Honma Kazuaki spent a couple of months out of the year creating his own art, which he submitted to annual spring and fall competitions. In time, I was allowed to observe and then to assist in his art making. Kazuaki’s favorite plaiting technique back then was matsuba-ami (pine needle plaiting), so I became familiar with that style of plaiting and its variant seikai-ami (blue ocean plaiting) before I even learned to make simple mutsume-ami (hexagonal plaited) baskets. In 1990, I used my free time at night experimenting with making my own

Flowing Pattern A, 2018, 41.5 × 28.5 × 8 inches

bamboo sculpture using these techniques. I had to overcome my technical limitations and lack of basic basket-making knowledge to translate my ideas into three-dimensional forms. Later that year, I made my first bamboo sculpture Snail, which I submitted to the Niigata Prefectural Art Exhibition.

Without realizing it, I eventually developed a process similar to sculptors in different mediums. I sketch out many ideas and make small maquettes to realize them in three-dimensions. Once the scale is determined, I make an armature out of wood and look for the right bamboo to make my vision a reality. The final drawing is life-size, and I bend the nemagari over a flame carefully to match the lines on the paper. Once the nemagari has been shaped, I attach it to the armature, and it acts as the skeleton of the sculpture I intend to create.

Then, I fill in the empty spaces with plaited bamboo. I adjust proportions and ensure that the piece has proper surface textures. I later learned that this process is rather unique among bamboo artists. Other bamboo sculptors usually work from the bottom up in a manner similar to making a basket. In the beginning, I thought not knowing the basics of basket making was a disadvantage, but it actually allowed me to think freely and helped me develop my own method and personal style. n Honma Hideaki, 2018

Slanted Shadow, 2010, 28.25 Ă— 12 Ă— 13.25 inches

Snail, 2014, 5.5 × 28.5 × 5.25 inches

Harmony, 2018, 17.25 Ă— 28.25 Ă— 10 inches

Floating, 2017, 14.5 × 38.25 × 6.5 inches

Flowing Pattern B, 2018, 25 × 37 × 10 inches

Ripples, 2013, 10.25 × 36.75 × 7.5 inches

Cool Breeze, 2013, 6.5 × 30.5 × 13.5 inches

Tide, 2017, 18.5 × 29.25 × 21.5 inches

Sign of Wind, 2018, 28.5 × 19.25 × 6 inches

Flowing Pattern, 2016, 37 × 30 × 14 inches

A TALE OF THREE SNAILS

The first Snail is important because it was the first. It was the first piece Honma Hideaki had accepted into a public exhibition, it was the first work he made from start to finish, but most significantly, it was the first work of bamboo art that he made completely on his own. Previously, when working on a piece, he had always asked for advice from his teacher Honma Kazuaki. However, Kazuaki had been in the hospital while Hideaki was creating his Snail, so he didn’t see it until after it was completed.

The second Snail came six months later. Kazuaki was a man of high standards and a good eye, so after being released from the hospital, he had a great deal of constructive criticism for his student. Incorporating Kazuaki’s feedback and suggestions, Hideaki started over and re-made the Snail sculpture.

The third Snail, in the manner of many snails, took its time. After a quarter century of artmaking, Hideaki wanted to see how he had progressed. So he tracked down the original work from 1991 and, 25 years later, made another Snail.

Comparing the three Snails today, Hideaki says that he can see a huge improvement between the first and second pieces. This change was due to the advice of his teacher. The improvement between the second and third Snail is more subtle, but he is proud of it because it is his own progress as an artist that he sees.

As to whether there will be a fourth Snail, who knows…? n Margo Thoma, 2018

HONM A HIDE AK I B.1959, Sado Island, Japan

As a young man, Honma served in the Japanese Air Self-Defense Force. After an accident caused a loss of sight in one eye, he was forced to resign. His uncle, the pioneering bamboo artist Honma Kazuaki, had no children, so he adopted Hideaki, who loved to draw and work with his hands, as his son, student and heir to the family’s bamboo legacy.

Honma is inspired by the abundant natural beauty of his home on the remote Sado Island. He often uses menyadake, a type of soft, pliable bamboo that only grows on the island, and hand-cuts bamboo from the forests outside of his home.

In addition to practicing karate and tea ceremony, Honma balances his devotion to his family with a commitment to community, spending much of his time as an advocate of local culture.

Tide, 2018, 13.5 × 51.75 × 8 inches

From 2008 to 2013, Honma co-taught the bamboo art curriculum at the Sado Island School, an ambitious three-year program he founded with fellow artist Kawano Shoko. In 2 014, Honma won the prestigious Tokusen Prize at the Japan Fine Arts Exhibition. He is one of only eight bamboo artists in the award’s 100-plus years to receive this honor. Recently, he has re-dedicated himself to developing his individual style, making sculptures that can stand beside, but separate from the work of his well-known father.

Honma’s work is part of the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art; Art Institute of Chicago; Minneapolis Institute of Art; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; and Asian Art Museum, San Francisco.

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