Tucked away on a narrow street in one of Tokyo’s oldest and most interesting neighborhoods is the studio of Nihonga artist, Allan West. Allan and I met a few years ago, when we were fellow lecturers for an international conference in Kyoto.

Nihonga is a fascinating medium with strong roots in traditional Japanese painting and some western influence. Its development into a modern Japanese art form came about shortly after Japan opened up to the world following nearly 250 years of self-imposed isolation, in the 1800s, through the influence of art critics, such as Okakura Tenshin and Ernest Fenollosa. At a time of extraordinary fascination with western art by the Japanese, the concept of Nihonga was brought forward as a way of focusing attention on overshadowed traditional Japanese art. However, Nihonga was different from pre-modern Japanese painting in the breadth of the subjects portrayed. It also combined previously separate styles of Japanese painting, such as Kano and Rimpa, and incorporated western perspective, among other techniques.

Allan West discovered Nihonga during graduate school at the Tokyo University of Fine Arts, located just around the corner from what is now his studio. After receiving an MFA in Japanese painting, he set up his studio in Japan, and has worked here, ever since. Allan’s innovative Nihonga is shown and collected throughout the world.

In Collaboration with Photographer, Helen Hasenfeld

© Photos by Helen Hasenfeld

Hase Hoju is thought by many Buddhist leaders in Japan to be one of the great statue carvers of our time, both restoring existing statues as well as creating new ones. He was born and raised near Nagoya, in Toyota City, famous for auto manufacturing. “There were almost no Buddhist Temples and almost no statues,” Hase-san recalls. “When I was in the sixth grade at the age of 12, I visited Kyoto’s Sanjusangendo repository of 12th and 13th century Buddhist statuary on a school excursion, and was touched and moved by the beauty and intensity of what I saw there. Especially when I saw the life-sized statues of the 28 attendant deities of the Kannon Boddhisatva, I felt a deep and extraordinary connection. It was because of that visit that I soon after decided to become a Buddhist statue carver. Even at the age of 12, I knew that I would not be a carver without also being a priest who was educated in Buddhism. So, rather than following the path of the lay craftsman, I chose the path of the priest.”

On his own at age 12, Hase-san began to carve statues. Then, at 15, he decided to go to high school far from home in the ancient Shingon Buddhist town of Koya-san, in the mountains of Wakayama Prefecture. Though there are many scores of temples and statue treasures in the town as well as hundreds of priests, there were actually no Buddhist carvers working there from whom he could learn.

“Later, I went to a Shingon Buddhist seminary college in Kyoto before beginning my apprenticeship with a master Buddhist carver. I stayed with him for three years. It was much shorter than the usual apprenticeship time, but I already had received a commission to carve a statue and could not proceed with it while apprenticed to someone else. So I quit my apprenticeship and have been independent ever since.

“For me, the process of creating a statue begins when an image first comes slowly together in my mind. After making a sketch, I carve a wooden scale model. By using an engineering protractor, I am able to transfer the correct proportions of up to five times the size of the model, to the actual full sized statue. If, however, I use the protractor to make a statue that is more than 5 times the size of the model, the size of the head inevitably looks too large for the body.”

Most statues are made from hinoki cypress. The body of the statue is actually composed of a number of pieces of wood that have been bonded together, then, hollowed out. This technique dates back almost 1000 years and not only makes statues lighter and easier to handle, but prevents them from splitting, as do those carved from solid pieces of wood. After carving is complete the statue can be covered with a gauze-like cloth, lacquered and finally covered in gold leaf. Other statues are left in their natural color whereas still others are painted in a wide range of colors.

“You didn’t ask why I went to Orisa. I’ve actually traveled to India many times for research on ancient statuary at museums and archeological sites. I am very interested in the earliest period of Buddhist statues. I have recently edited my photos and data of my trips to Orisa and compiled them into a book. I eventually want to recreate the original statues of Buddha. Though most of them have been destroyed, by piecing together the remains from that time, I have already been able to reconstruct statues of that period. My dream is to do this, possibly using a kind of cement. Also, I would like to continue to repair some of the poorly restored statues in Indian museums.”

A SLIDE SHOW of HASE-SAN and his WORK

There are a few places in the world that are truly enchanting. One such place is a town of just 500 people that has touched my life and the lives of many people I have taken there. It is a town near the Sea of Japan in Shimane Prefecture, in a long narrow valley, tucked between forested hills. Omori-cho has a sweetness that continues to call us back for, yet, another visit.

According to the person who most helped inspire the town’s restoration, Matsuba Tomi-san, “this used to be a place that no one ever visited.” She moved here thirty years ago with her husband Daikichi. A new mother at the time, she began to make baby clothes for her own children. Neighbors and friends liked what she did and requests for her work increased. Eventually, Daikichi began selling her work to retail stores, and the Gungendo Company was born. Over the past 30 years, the Matsubas and the growing Gungendo family have restored the eyesore of a town into a superb combination of esthetics and consciousness. Also, by supporting local farmers, mom & pop spinners, dyers and weavers, Gungendo has almost single-handedly saved them from bankruptcy due to the influx of cheap imports. With the resulting fabrics, they have created a line of adult clothing of extraordinary quality and distinctively Japanese design in addition to fine home accessories. (My favorite item is their shifu sheets, woven with cotton and spun washi paper.)

Rather than sell their products in well located boutiques in the hottest shopping districts of Tokyo and Kyoto, they have chosen to place their shops off the hyper-consumer path. They are not just selling clothes and household goods– they are selling a life-style that values natural materials, human relationships and revitalized rural aesthetics. Rather than restoring an old town into a random set of cold, museum-like buildings, they have brought an old town up-to-date. Gungendo and the Matsubas are to clothes and home accessories what Chez Panisse and the Slow Food Movement’s Alice Waters are to food.

The wooden, thatch and paper town is at once old and traditional and, at the same time, modern and comfortable. Old fashioned architectural elements have been revitalized and unobtrusively combined with modern conveniences.

Years ago, when Gungendo built their new company offices there, the shiny white prefabricated building looked out of place amongst the soft, mud, wood and bamboo walls and fences of its neighbors. So, they covered the new building with old barn siding and it immediately blended with the old minka farmhouse they had previously moved and restored next door.   The thatched house became a place for company staff to eat lunch and take breaks. The concrete drainage ditch next door was naturalistically lined with river stones and was transformed back into a “real” stream again.

The master construction person responsible for much of the restoration work in town is Kajitani-san. He has repaired and built waddle and daub walls, installed windows, paved walkways with old ceramic roof tiles or kiln bricks, put in electrical wiring and plumbing, unobtrusively and aesthetically created modern toilet rooms and baths in 250 year old houses. He is as comfortable working with bamboo as he is bringing old discarded barn doors and furniture back to life in a way that compliments living in the 21st century.

Nowadays, when Tomi-san is not reintroducing old Japanese textile patterns into next year’s clothing line at Gungedno, she can be found cooking a wonderful “slow food” meal on the 150-year old wood stove at Abeke House. With fish from the local seacoast and vegetables from kitchen gardens throughout the neighborhood, she has thoroughly delighted the palettes of all of the guests I have brought to Omori-cho over the years. One vegetarian herbalist from L.A. surprised his fellow travelers by deciding on-the-spot to eat a beef dish that Tomi-san prepared. He said, “I gladly make an exception to my vegetarian diet with food prepared with this much love.”

The restoration of 250-year old Abeke House was one of Tomi-san and Daikichi-san’s pet projects. It cost about $1,000,000 to transform an abandoned and completely dilapidated old house into an Architectural-Digest-Quality house that sleeps 12 people. It was a very long and very tedious project, but the result was a dream house fit for an enchanted town. A visit each year to Abeke House, Gungendo Company, the people, the food and the aesthetic of Omori-cho feels like coming home.