How to build a classical Japanese House for Fun and Profit

For all of my adult life I have rebuilt old houses, usually from states of advanced decrepitude to awarding winning beauties.  Admittedly when done they remain drafty and inconvenient to live in but look GREAT!  I figure if you want to live in a seriously hip house, you've got to pay your dues.   Anyway, below are pictures of a building my wife and I (along with several other carpenters and masons) redesigned and rebuilt.  It is now a National Cultural Property of Japan, and is in the middle of the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Iwami-Ginzan, Japan. 

To say the building was a derelict and doddering hulk is an understatement.   The above photos show it before it was stripped.  Often, if not usually, the buildings are completely dismantled, including pulling up the foundations, all parts carefully marked.  Rotten beams are copied, same dimensions, same species of wood, and the building reassembled.

Next, we climb mountains in winter (the time to cut bamboo) and cut hundreds of trees, and carry them down the mountain.  These are then cut to length and split in 1" strips, nailed up and woven together with straw rope.  It is very hard but satisfying work.

The the hard work starts, plastering.  This means cutting many bales of rice straw into 1" lengths, digging tons of clay from the mountains, mixing it with the old clay salvaged from the building, and replastering several coats inside and out.   Fill a bucket, carry it up the ladder, plaster, climb down, do it again, several thousand times.

There were several great carpenters and plasters employed, but I did everything they did in equal part, as well as design and direct all work (and pay all bills).

That's me milling lumber.  The lumber in these projects is often recycled beams, or raw lumber (read: logs).  Every piece is hewn and milled on the spot, correct to the millimeter, literally.

As the building is a National Cultural Property, there were strict rules about the exterior and structure.   The interior was much freer.  While the walls inside were also plastered with clay, the under structure was built with wood lath, which I cut from scrap.  This was in keeping with construction methods in the Meiji period rather than the Edo period like the exterior.

You can see the finished building at the following link

Alexander Wilds Matsuura House Iwami-Ginzan JAPAN

I add that much of what appears "old" in the building is brand new, and much of the building has been heavily "re-purposed".  The core of the building is a storehouse dating to the late 18th century, and sections were added through to the 1950's.   The facade has been restored to how it looked about 1920, when the building was used as a shop - it is a shop now, with living quarters in the back and upstairs.

I never try to make my buildings look old nor new, modern nor classical, Japanese nor American.  I just want them to look really good, as defined by me I suppose.

ISIS, in wood and in bronze

                               Isis, 1998, wood, copper sheet, rawhide, with limestone base.
                                     Michel Corporate Collection, Kita-Kyushu, Japan

  Last sculpture I made in Taos, New Mexico, and nearly the last of this series  of lifesize figures in mixed media (a few others were made as commissions).

Same sculpture in cast bronze at Shidoni in 2000 - 2001, my version anyway, and in my personal pile.  I figure let metal be metal, keep it simple and direct.   I add that I usually cast my work myself, but am still really impressed with the technical perfection of Shidoni.

This is the version in Shidoni Corporate Collection (which I yet hope they sell and pay me), in which their patina mimics the original wood version well.   But wood and bronze should age and get a real patinas on their own, and there is no reason to make the bronze look like the wood.   I think the marvelous craftsmen at  Shidoni missed that. 

"Yukiko Inchanko"  cast iron, lifesize, 2006 or so.   I usually cast by myself using homemade blast furnaces, cupolas, tools, and scrap metals, pouring into sand/portland cement molds.   I have let professional foundries pour a few pieces, which come out perfect, which is NOT what I wanted.  The work above started in life as a bathtub.

"ZAZEN"  lifesize, champhor wood figure with rosewood chair,  2005 - 2008.

The figure was carved in Japan, and the chair in America.  Like most of my figures, it is my wife, Yukiko Oka.  Sort of.  Also, obviously, it is a meditating Buddha.  These are always either male or androgenous... I figure it is time for the feminine spirit to get some attention, at least in sculpture.

A Random Pile of Older Sculpture

I am uploadinging older images from a now abondoned computer.  It is sort of a last ditch attempt to address these old dreams.   Most of them, hell, all of them are long gone, sold, or scrapped, or reconfigured and then sold.   Most of them remained only as a snapshot with a cheap film camera, which was made into a slide, and then scanned, and then, well, left as a minor file on some computer somewhere.   So I now resurrect them, throw a shovelful of dirt on them, and move on.

A portrait of Barbara Wilson, sometime in the late 1980's,   later became 

"Guardian Angel of the Deep South, Land of the Dreamy Dreams", and was often shown that way in the 1990's.

This was her last incarnation, sold to the Nakamura Brace Corporate collection in Japan as 

"Walking Egypt", completed about 2002.  I add that she is 8" taller, and almost completely recarved with a sheet copper dress.   Really not the same work at all.

 This was once a full figure - head, legs, arms of cast iron with a bronze dress.  Kind of corny to tell the truth.  In 1997 she was shipped and sold to a gallery in New Mexico.   Alas, UPS dropped her, smashing her, so the sale was off.   I took the various pieces, and made four separate sculptures from the original.  Made a much better profit, and much better sculptures as well.   You know the old song about the "sow took the measles and she died in the spring"?  "What do you think became of her hide? Very best saddle you ever did ride!"  Sort of like that.   Anyway, the dress alone (above) sold for $10,000.

Oh, look!  There are her hands on that funky copper and cast iron box.   Collection of Margaret DiBlasio, St.Paul, MN

Here is her head and left foot, with copper wire and rawhide, as "Masaai", sold to CBS Corporation through Shidoni Foundry in Santa Fe, about 1998.

And the right leg, well reworked with sheet copper, as "Wind", completed about 2006.  I still have it.

"Legends"  Concrete and Steel, 18' high and 161'  across, was a BIG sculpture at Rhodes college for 20 years or so,  (1978 - 1997?)  demolished to make a parking lot.  Like all young artists I had dreams of making BIG sculptures.  I still dream of it, but architecture works out better.

element 3, about 10' tall

Element # 2, about 14' tall.   I think these three images are all that remain of that Herculean work.

My graduate work was all in stone.  Don't ask me why.   Okay, I really like stone sculptures, particularly my own, simple and abstract and strong, but, LORDY!, what a horrible way to spend your time of day.

I still make stone sculpture and objects, but only as commissions with pay up front.

"Blowing Memphis Through a Horn"  1998, wood, steel and copper.  I say 1998, which is when I made it, but, hell, should have been 1973, has it was a revisit to the very first kinds of sculpture I made as a student - organic, Henry Moore "forms".  I still make them every year, and it remains my favorite kind of sculpture to make or to see.  Collection of Eric Schaumberg, Fort Worth.

"Yutakanohime", city hall in Takicho, Japan, maybe 1990.  This, too, is me revisiting my earliest interest in sculpture.  I add this stands more than eight feet tall, and took a year to carve.   I still make works like these, usually when I am sort of lost, cannot find focus for sculpture: I return to that which inspired me in the first place to recharge my batteries.

Other Recent Paintings, all along the same lines

These painting are elsewhere on this blog, but I put them here as well, as they are the sort of thing I am doing now, this summer.    I usually make sculpture year around, but it is so hot right now that (A) real work is no fun, and (B) I can use the sun's heat to dry the oil really fast, getting some really interesting effects - make hay when the sun shines.

As I have said elsewhere as well, I am making "seascapes", but it is just a format, one that allows large areas and simple composition, letting me concentrate of the painterly and color field aspects.   Mostly I am experimenting, seeing what sort of depths, textures, translucencies, etc., I can get out of paint as paint, rather than trying to illustrate anything.   I am going for simple, bold compositions that don't get in the way of the paint itself.   This is very much the "no method, no guru" approach to painting - let it roll and see what happens.

Sailing to  Ehime across the Bungo Kaido, 

oil on panel 24" x 65", 2011

Sea of Japan

oil on panel 24" x 65", 2010-2011

Alex and summer efforts

This is an email I sent to my old pal Lon Anthony yesterday.   It sums up what I am doing these days.

"Dear Lon,

I paint, if that's what you would call it, daily as it is too hot to make sculpture, given the money involved.   So I paint, rarely using a brush other than to slush stuff around - trowels, brayers, buckets are more my thing.  This particular work, if that's what you'ld call it, is bentonite/water slurry mixed with latex paint for a ground (really thick at the bottom), followed by spar varnish (by the quart) mixed with phlatho, cerulean, and prussian blues.   I hope to get about 1/2 inch of glaze.    Might include some sheets of plexiglass in there just for bulk.    I am looking for the sort of deep  transparency of water and the roughness of earth like you get in the keys.

 I expect to use chrome paint near the horizon, and have a minimal landscape, pale turnesque sky up top later on in the week.   I try to start three canvasses a week.

Alex"

I tend to paint flat, wet, and thick, troweling and pouring, seeing what sort of action I can get out of paint as paint itself.   My works are somewhat pictorial, sea scapes I suppose, but that is really just a format, and not important in itself.    Note my trusty Morris Traveller in the background, a source of daily inspiration.  

I think this is a good example of what I am going for, maybe Alberto Burri meets Mark Rothko, Clifford Still and Barnet Newman at the beach?

Coast of Hokkaido, Late Showa

I really like painting, BIG canvases in oil, and have done them for decades, rarely ever showing them.  This is a great favorite of mine.

80808 Gallery, June, 2011, Benedict College Faculty Exhibition

A good show with my colleagues from Benedict College.   I suspect on the Benedict website there are images of the whole show; forgive me if my blog features my work.

The above is "Proud Augusta" , carved 2008 - 2010, American Cherry.  I got back to America after decades in Japan to be astonished at the scale of American womanhood.  I wasn't trying to make any statement, just carving what I reckoned the ladies in the neighborhood might look like.   I was living in Augusta, Ga., hence the name.

"Himiko and Her Pet Sphynx go to the Art Show"   mixed media, lifesize (whatever that means for a sphynx), somewhere from 1997 - 2011.  It's sort of like George Washington's axe, or bands like Iron Butterfly.   This piece has been reconfigured  and rebuilt several times.   It is a big favorite of mine.

"Yukiko Seiza", lifesize, cast iron, 2005,  and "Sea of Japan" oil on board, 2011.  

I guess these two images together sort of sum up what I am going for.  

"Pool",  polyester resins on goatskin, 40" high, 2008

resin on goatskin.... yeah....  if it isn't experimental, and with considerable risk of failure, why even bother?   I like selling work, but the galleries always want me to make one just like the last one they sold.   Or make something "edgy" (whatever that means), or fits over the sofa...  Lord knows I try to please them, but I just can't help trying to make it better than the last ones...

So I am always experimenting, and, man, you ought to see my scrap pile!   This is an experiment.  Just that.   I like it.

  "Head of the Great Sphynx, lifesize, wood and bronze, 2002.

  Sort of the Ozymandius thing - there was an entire wood and bronze sphynx, alas too big to fit through any door in any house.   When we moved to America in 2007, I just brought the head and bronze fittingss, figuring to rebuild it.   But I'll just show the head and use the fittings on another piece later on.

"Portrait of Opia Riley"  Wood, nails, pigment, 60" tall, 2011.

"Oshiri Hibachi"  bronze, lifesize, 2004-ish    My wife Yukiko was the model.   I have always loved the full voluptuous forms of some Korean and Greek pottery.   This is a comment about that.

"Shimada san"  2004-ish   She was supposed to be a full figure sitting in meditation.   I cast her, as I do all my work, at home, by myself, homemade foundry, highly experimental system, and, well, the mold was still a bit wet deep inside, causing it to erupt like Vesuvius in my studio.   The face came out alright; might as well salvage what you can.

"Wind"  1996 - 2008 iron and copper