Courses and Projects

After two weeks of school it's about time I started proving I'm actually doing something here, right?

So here we go:

Monday:

08:45 – 10:15

'Urushi tools' with Ogawa-sensei:

Learning to use and maintain different tools that are needed for Japanese lacquer work.

So far we have learned to sharpen a small blade for which the term is 'hamono'. It is used, as knives tend to be, for cutting. Cutting really anything that might need cutting to be used for Urushi.

Sharpening it is surprisingly tricky, not like sharpening your basic European knife. Like many knives, hamono are made from two kinds of steel. One layer of very hard steel that holds the sharp edge and a softer layer on top to make it more durable (hard steel alone would just shatter if for example hit with a hammer or dropping on a stone floor). For sharpening, the edge of the blade has to be completely straight, so the parts that aren't need to be hammered down. It is also important how wide the part of exposed hard steel is, too wide and it will break easily. When the width is good and the edge is completely straight, the actual sharpening begins from the other side using a sharpening stone. Here, again, one has to be careful not to expose too much of the hard steel. In the end, when all was done correctly, those things are seriously sharp, that's Sharp as in: ouch! (Petra, I'll never ever let you get even within 5m of this thing!)

Next thing to do will be some special kind of wooden spatulas used for example for mixing Urushi.

14:45 – 18:00

'Maki-e' with Hayashi-sensei

Learning to make Maki-e, 'sprinkled pictures', which is a technique where gold or silver powder is used to creatue a picture on an Urushi-surface.

Until now we've mostly been drawing flowers. And some flowers. And then some more flowers. And our next task is: drawing – yes, you guessed it – flowers. Because some kind of flower is what we should in the end 'sprinkle-draw'.

But we also started making – no, not flowers – a few small tools that will be needed to use this technique. We also need at least two basic Urushi plates to apply the maki-e to, and since I of course don't have any and don't have any time to make them completey myself until we need them, I got two basic plates from my teacher. Those two still need to be prepared further until they can be used though, but with the help of two co-students I'm doing that on the side.

Tuesday

08:45 – 10:15 and 13:00 – 14:30

'Craft History' and 'Contemporary Craft' with Ookuma-sensei.

Those are lectures in Japanses and I right now I use them mostly to learn the language because I don't yet really understand what the teacher is saying. I just try to pick out words, look them up in my dictionary and right them down. But there's nice pictures of different 'crafty' objects.

14:45 – 18:00

'Lost Wax Casting' with Mifune-sensei

I've done lost wax casting in Lahti before of course, but the Japanese way is a bit different, expecially when it comes to mold-making. They use a clay-charcoal-mix to make the mold, applying it by hand around the wax model. Very interesting. At first we made a few very small figures, just to get to know how it works, the next project now is something bigger. I wasn't sure what we were allowed to make, so I just drew up a sketch of a small bowl and went to the teacher to as if that would be possible to make. I had expected either a yes or no as answer. Obviously I hadn't considered that I'm in Japan.

He looked at the sketch, then started making sketches on his own, pondering the whole thing until he had thought of a way that I would be able to realize my sketch. I don't think it ever even occured to him that he might simply tell me to do something easier. So, now I'm kind of doing my own thing using a temporary core mold on top of which I do the model, on top of which I will do the outer mold, then take out the preliminary mold and replace it with the final core mold.

You didn't get it? Don't worry. I'm not sure I understood myself, I just wrote it to show that Mifune-sensei is being extremely nice to make it possible for me to make my little bronze bowl. And I could have just gone and thought of something more simple... On the other hand, maybe he also likes to be able to try and solve something a little harder to make?

Wednesday

Wednesday is free. But with many tasks staying over from the normal courses, with my own project (about which I will tell further along) and with Yosakoi training in the evening, 'free' isn't really very free.

Wednesday is also the day I usually go to the supermarked and to the post office if I need to get money, since it's closed on weekends and when my school ends.

Thursday

08:45 – 10:30

'Urushi Tools'

14:45 – 18:00

'Lost Wax Casting'

Friday

08:45 – 12:00

'Maki-e'

14:45 – 18:00

'Clay Sculpture' with Kotou-sensei (I'm still not sure I got the name right...)

I did a torso from plasticine (plastoliini?) in Lahti in January, which ended up as a bronze cast, so sculpting basically is not something I would have been required to take. But then here we do it with clay and we make a bust, so it's something I wanted to try out.

That's my schedule so far, in addition to which there's of course the Yosakoi club. Even with the frequent free lessons in between, I'm very busy. At the start it was mostly organisational things that needed to be taken care of, in future it will mostly be to do work that couldn't be finished in the time alotted to each course, which seems to be a normal thing here. I will also be doing my own project, which I decided to take on to get a few more credits ('opintopisteitä') as well as simply because it interests me. Ogawa-sensei and Takahashi-sensei will be my supporting teachers for it and what I'm doing, basically, is a research about Urushi. Partly theoretically (what is it, were does it come from, different types, maybe some history) but, more importantly, practically. I will for example make four 10cm x 40cm boards illustrating all the steps needed to make a finished black Urushi lacquer surface. I will also try to use Urushi to either make one piece or a small series of jewelry.

In the end I basically want some kind of 'How to' about Urushi. I want to be able to show people at home what it is and how it's done and hopefully continue doing it myself also in Finland.

I think this should be the most important things about school for now. I'll try to have some kind of final summary for each course in the end, as well as pictures for the more interesting or complicated things, like for example the Japanese way to make a mold for lost wax casting.