When I first climbed the ladder into the second floor of the Nishino Family Storehouse, I noticed a large wooden box with a lid. Without looking inside, I sensed it was full. Standing next to it, images of the box’s lifetime rushed into my mind. I pictured the hands that filled it, that placed it on the shelf, that inscribed a note on its face in chalk. The imaginary past flooded into the present.
In Iowa last spring, I bent and welded two small steel shapes that Nicholas and I carried in our suitcase to Echizen in August. As I’ve spent time with them in the last two weeks for Imadate Art Field, the shapes have grown and changed in response to the phenomena of the second floor of the storehouse. In their current form, I think of one shape as a wing (picture the brevity of a moment with a butterfly) and the other, a tangle (like the slow combining of parts to make a new whole). Now placed across from one another at each window, I imagine these two gestures in conversation as the room is enlivened with air, people and light over the course of this fall’s Imadate Art Field exhibition.
After visiting each exhibition site, and before beginning the installation process, two of the visiting artists, Skye and Charlie, and I were invited by Nicholas to visit with his friend and mentor, Naho-san, at her mill, Tesuki Washi Naho. With decades of intensive experience demonstrating, teaching and making hand-made paper, Naho-san has newly opened her mill in Echizen. Upon entering her workspace, I felt focused and energized. We made our introductions, talked and settled in, standing back for a moment to witness Naho-san’s work at the vat as she pulled four sheets. Afterward, we were invited to ask questions, which brought us to the process of preparing the fiber… Naho-san explained that, for this batch, the fiber was cooked, cleaned and beaten over the course of about three weeks before reaching the sheet forming stage we saw that day. Witnessing just the pulling of these four sheets felt impossibly brief in comparison to the steps that both preceded and would follow their journey to becoming paper.
During our visit with Naho-san, Nicholas made it possible for each of us to converse by way of translation. Despite my own daily practice learning to read and speak Japanese, I often lean on Nicholas to communicate more deeply in Echizen. The notions above about the duration, time-intensive process and labor of papermaking, as well as the practice of communicating about it, are not mine. These are themes that routinely surface in our conversations about Nicholas’ own research and teaching. With years of commitment and experience, Nicholas’s translation and the sharing of his research are offerings that I profoundly respect.
Returning to Nishino Family House, I think about how the storehouses were originally created for safekeeping of goods (namely miso, woven mosquito netting, and hosho paper) manufactured by Echizen craftspeople from the 1890’s onwards. As I continue to write, the paths of these experiences cross in my mind. The word safekeeping leads my reflection back to the closed wooden box inside the storehouse. I think of the box’s relationship to the daily work we are all doing in tandem today. In every process of making and living our lives, some elements of the work (planning, maintaining, cleaning, sorting…) are so intimate they may be invisible to all but ourselves. Looking again at the box, if it remains unopened, only the people who filled it can really know what is inside – and in the case of the work of our lives, to choose if/when to open and share what is inside is a sacred and sovereign right.
The box, the mill, our cross-language conversations, the storehouse and the sculptures… whether our labor is directly witnessed or sensed, the small steps we each take in the process amount to much more than can be seen or counted. Writing this out, I realize I’m exploring how it is we come to know something of the materials, spaces, and their storied connection to our lives – this is a practice of my own kind of unboxing.
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To share the impressions of the Nishino storehouse and the objects that I created in response, I made a two-part video document using my old DXG-581V camcorder. Part one captures some of the sights and details that I came across within the first hours of my time in Nishino storehouse, including a visual of the box I refer to above. Part two captures views of the responsive sculptures as they are currently installed in the space.
I offer this writing and these videos as a part of the piece and invite you to view them online for the duration of the exhibition:
Part 1: https://vimeo.com/1232548982?fl=ip&fe=ec
