Scott Skinner reports from Kochi . For an overview of the entire project, read Paper in Flight.
Every trip to Japan is unique: you notice different things, the weather might be more or less extreme than you remember, sometimes the excitement of the national sumo tournament pervades everything, and the group you travel with uniquely molds impressions and experiences. So it was this Spring when nine international kite artists – young and old, male and female – arrived in Osaka to travel on to Kochi and Kyoto to build kites and to observe Japanese hand papermaking.
Organized by The Drachen Foundation and Hiromi Paper International (HPI), the group was led by Hiromi Katayama of HPI, an expert in Japanese paper and an able guide to the artists. During the week in Japan, the group was able to observe the traditions of a Living National Treasure’s hand papermaking operation, the labor-intensive work of one of the few makers of su [screen to dip paper], and real-time academic work at Kyoto University. But the primary reason for the group to gather was to make kites for an exhibit that would debut in Kochi, then travel to the Hui No’eau Visual Arts Center in Hawaii, and finally move to the celebration of Hand Papermaking magazine’s twentieth anniversary, at Maryland Institute College of Art in October.
For the first three days in Japan , group members were sequestered at the Kochi Washi Museum’s beautiful ryokan, where they had ample time and space to create pieces for exhibit. Using washi, the artists demonstrated the vast array of creative ideas that can be realized with the material. From the large-scale maneuverable kites of Robert Trépanier, to the ephemeral masterpiece of Anna Rubin, to the sophisticated structures of Yoshizumi-san and István Bodóczky, the resulting exhibit features kites seldom imagined by most observers: traditional forms with imaginative surface-treatment and very contemporary forms that can only be imagined as kites—that is, until you actually see them in flight.
The diversity of kites is also a result of the diversity of the artists; there was a father and son, a mentor and student, an established Japanese kite master, and “two middle-aged men and two young ladies.” Although this description compartmentalizes the participants, there were no boundaries between any of them, and that helped to make the experience artistically rewarding. Influences of the experience and of the fellow artists will surely be seen in future work by all.
It is hoped that the resulting exhibit will influence serious students and artists who might be looking for a release from earth-bound art. It is also hoped that these people will continue the demand for fine Japanese paper – the only way that the art of washi will survive.
Please watch for an upcoming article about the exhibit, with images of all kites created during the residency.
Anna |
Tony
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Yosh with Tony's kite
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Papermaker with su
Robert, Hiromi, and Yosh with papermaker
Alessia Marrocu and Yoshizumi-san
István and Tony Bodóczky
Daniela Zitzmann, Anna Rubin, and Alessia
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