I spoke this spring at Middlebury College, a talk that was sponsored by the Japanese Department. After the talk, I learned that a recent graduate had gone to Japan and enrolled at a school for bamboo crafts in Oita, Kyushu. He is Stephen Jensen and he was a Japanese/Studio Arts major at Middlebury. My one and only contact with the world of bamboo is through making the taketaga, or bamboo hoops, that hold together the tub boats that I learned to build on Sado Island. This is classic Japanese coopering. Interestingly, Mr. Jensen told me that no one at his school was familiar with the techniques of making bamboo hoops. The school is focused on bamboo basketry, a highly refined Japanese craft that is beautiful to behold. But Mr. Jensen took enthusiastically to my small corner of the bamboo world and would up writing a blog post about my work. It's in Japanese and is derived from my first book, The Tub Boats of Sado Island; A Japanese Craftsman's Methods, published in English and Japanese in 2003 by the Kodo Cultural Foundation. In Japan the book can be found at major bookstores, or directly from the publisher. In Europe the easiest way to get a copy is to contact the German tool store DICK gmb, in North America and the rest of the world it is best to buy it from me directly (where you can get a signed copy).

Mr. Jensen's blog post can be found here.