Remembering a carver - Ito Susumu

good evening this is what what printmaker david ball here at my carving bench in our Asarco shop this is a place I've rarely had a chance to sit in recent months but it's most appropriate place to do tonight's video because in this episode I'm going to introduce you to one of the old Carver's I knew many years ago something happened the other day then brought him back to my attention as it worked and I think our fans might like to hear the story people ask me what you learn to do this and the easy answer is da kukaku the word in Japanese self-taught and that's really 99% true I started back in Canada as a hobby and of course back then this is an early 1980s there's no books there's no internet there's no teachers about how to do this it was a question of trial and error trying to cut some bits of wood trying to print them see what happens step by step my interest deepened after a few years I decided to cut run quit my job and come to Japan not really with the idea becoming a woodblock print maker straight away but certainly with the idea of learning more about it at the beginning that didn't happen I know I got involved teaching English to try and feed my family and as far as meeting craftsmen goes it just wasn't any chance to do that I did spend a couple of months at the yoshida studio over in said the guy this is back when Toshio Shido was still alive but I only stayed there for a couple months just going a couple of days a week because I was kind of disappointed in it not anything bad at all about mr. Yoshida but simply they had no Carver they're doing their prints on the key blocks are all done by metal plates done from photographs and I want to really learn about carving and carving so I left there I went back home the years went by 1986 87 88 and by 1989 came round I'd still been you know practicing by myself and practicing myself and I still never had a chance to see a craftsman so one day in my English newspaper I kept the clipping I've got a sort of a diary of what happened in those days one day in my newspaper the 18th Japan Airlines Mainichi newspaper culture seminar your chance to meet Japanese craftsmen and there were two men listed there where our here on a car versus mu Ito and printer Kay's a borough matsuzaki I of course phoned right away to get my name down the list it was a free but you had a phone get a tickets and the lady said I'm sorry sir but it's all booked up give me a break I mean whatever so I didn't I didn't pay attention about the date and time were listed there so I went down there anyway it didn't matter because a bunch of people didn't show up so and I went it was one of the most boring events I've ever seen in my life I know maths Oksana Ito summer sitting off of one side at their benches and a lecture started to give us a long long lecture about uqa history and some people just they got left and they went on and on and on at some point somebody gave the guy the hook and they like they hit only five minutes ten minutes left space less time to look at the craftsman so this is the moment I've been waiting for Matt sucks on the printer and leaves us on the Carver got to work and those it wasn't gathered around we watched and watched and watched and then you know people wandered away and somebody tried to ask your questions with an interpreter I didn't speak very much Japanese at all at that time anyway the event came to a finish and they they organized us okay we'd clear the room please dono please go home and I'm like I do not want to leave I want to see discuss so as they're packing up their stuff I'm trying to to you know communicate with these guys and I had one of my prince with me and I gave it I showed it to Matt's laksa the printer he takes a signe says so where'd you get this and I'm you know in my broken Japanese I made this and he's what hahahah turns dangerous undercover look at this the guy says he made it there they start this routine back and forth and it became a paradigm after a few minutes that actually it was obviously something strange because I couldn't carve inprint brain well at that time and he started chatting with me and he became requite friendly printers are like that my experience now decades of experience here printers are friendly friendly friendly people Carver's are called and reserved not in any evil way but I think back in a traditional time they were pretty much the secrets of one workshop wouldn't go to a different workshop and they were pretty uh no independent anyway long story short i chat with this guy we exchanged maishy i asked him if i can come to his house and three or four days later there i am visiting Matt's like sons house to printer with my with my then wife who interpreted for me because I couldn't speak Japanese it was a great deal more I learned more in that you know one day with this guy that I'd learned it in in years by myself and of course before we left asked him you know Ito sound the Carver who was there that day can you introduce me and he phones up while we're sitting there and the conversation we can hear one sighs yeah for blah blah blah blah blah anyway the answer comes back no he's busy or doesn't want to do it or whatever the answer is no and what size my sucks and looks at me says you know this is really what I can expect from from Carver's so there's really nothing I can do I went back home I practiced my printing I got better and better and better as far as getting in touch with a carver there was nothing I could do move ahead not - it would have been 1990 - I can tell the day because I've got the preacher here that shows it a TV crew was in my workshop videoing me and they asked me who was your teacher so who's going on I was teaching what's going on I introduced him to my socks on they phoned him up and say hey can we have a session together can Dave come to your place and we can put this as part of our program so we did I went down a metal oxide place again with TV cameras and tall and they had set up unknown to me they had also set up a meeting with ethos on the Carver I guess they had asked Matt sucks on tie this up and I think they paid him some money but anyway when we came out of my son's place he said let's go I'm like where we going and they all said it we're gonna go and see ethos on the Carver and I'm jumping up and down I got my bag over my shoulder and away we go and in the finished program was this meeting with ethos on the Carver it took about an hour I guess we came in with the cameras rolling it would had all been pre-arranged he was expecting us and there I am all of a sudden in the same room with a real Japanese Carver and I'm like I've got a million questions to ask and I mostly just want to watch him carve and it was a stupendous stupendous hour the program came out and I'll put a clip of it here we can see some of it he demonstrated a few things for me he looked at my tools talked about how I should sharpen some of them and it was as you can imagine after having been you know this these questions having built up or so many years it was really really a worthwhile time for me to spend time with him let's take a minute just to get a couple of clips from that program dibadeaux Sangha Tonetta noah Kyoya hang macho she eatos soon sang-hun e o holy Shah consumer diva holy sh t this Tata cottage a job trailer still to toe to toe the risotto to bean in it pipes Cornish canal's akashi mascara saluto Valentia coco to the top selected dagger whose opener how many ranma's it as you saw in those clips ito-san had a block on his bench and he was carving it as I was to learn myself in later years and I still do this now this is what we call a TV block it's not a block from his regular work it's a it's a normal block it looks the same as regular work but you know when TV people come they're asking it please stop I'll do this open you can you carve here a little bit it's really disruptive to work and it can be dangerous you got a nice delicate work being going on and the thing just gets destroyed so Carver's like Utah side of myself we have a TV block and it's carved a little bit with one kind of tool a little bit with another kind of tool we can sort of demonstrate all the different things and it doesn't matter if it slips up and something breaks because this isn't going to be used for making prints from the outsiders point of view it looks like a real block but it's a TV block more about this later anyway I came home from there and I really did upgrade my work the the main thing I learned that day was about the hair carving how to actually carve the fine lines you know they normally don't talk about this thing and he didn't explain it to me but just by watching what he was doing that day I was able to see aha step 1 step 2 step 3 okay I get it now I came home and within the space of a few months my own work took a dramatic dramatic leap up I became a member of the craftsmen's Association - about this time and I occasionally would see it asan and motsak sanity's craftsmen's meetings those meetings aren't places where you can start bugging people about technical questions their meetings for guys just the drink and hang out and just chat about this or not but it kept my face in the group and it kept contact with the guys I asked either son some time a couple of times actually my Japanese got better and asked him can I come and you know and can see you again can ask a few more questions and always his answer was the same sorry Dave you know no I don't do that so no problem we roll along to 1998 and the same TV crew we're back in my workshop this time with a different motivation they were trying to do a one-hour documentary on hundred poet series that's the series of prints that took ten years and they had the idea that to use film from that previous meeting with Matt's oksanen ito-san and then now this was whatever was five six years later go back to those two guys again with some of my new prints I could show them how much I've improved they could teach me a bit more any way we can go so we did we went back to Ito son's place again this will be in 1998 knock on the door in we go you know they've paid him to let me in here there's another TV block on his desk it's a different one we talked about things and this time it wasn't so much hair carving it was a calligraphy he gave me some hints on some calligraphy there's a way that your car of lettering where there's a real difference between the front of the character and the back of the character and I'd been stumbling toward this upon myself excuse me I've been stumbling towards it by myself but to get an actual on a hallucination of how it worked was really really valuable to me the TV company had one more idea let's get a bunch of the guys together from the craftsman Association get him in a room together they can show him his work and they can all chat about what's going on this was just as we were coming to the end of that 100 here 100 port sirs so yeah we got one even I find myself in this room we drink a little bit which had a little bit sure some of the guys might work some hadn't had a chance to see it before and everybody's very complimentary mics nice nice meetings over I'll become I get in the TV truck with the cameraman Salman all these people and it's a pouring pouring pouring rain day the guys came out scattering ito Sun comes out and he's got a little umbrella sort of a bit broken and the rains pouring so I am the producer we'd become friends on him either son get the car get the truck mom take you home and he's like bond car my bad he starts walking away and we're like get serious look at the pouring lead get in the car and he's my my my my along ah and he runs off runs off away ok whatever nothing we can do a week later he was dead he got a bit of cold whatever taken the hospital and it was the end of his life no if I left it here that sounds like a horrible thing we killed one of the old Carver's his family I talked to his family about this they said no no no he had been really quite ill for a while he'd been very much on a downward curve and they were expecting any day that he was going to be at all getting critical and it was just pretty much exactly on schedule so his family is not upset with me in any way that I was involved at the end of his life but I and the TV producer were pretty you know what do you feel you've almost killed one of Japan's old Carver's but anyway that was the end of my association with ethos I know and would have been a couple of weeks later I visited his with his wife to take you on a little offering some money for flowers and stuff like that and had a chance to have a really really nice chat with her her daughter you know made tea frozen kept out of the way and I chatted with his wife for a couple of hours and she told me stories about his life as a younger couple and some terrifying experiences about the war which don't need to become part of this story and she gave me a few of his to someone she brought out his tools and said that these are all arranged it's going to go to a museum it's all been set up but look nobody knows if you take a few of them we go and I did I picked out his main carving knife and three other small chisels and she was happy that I would be able to have these and of course I was very very happy to have them and I don't use them of course they they sit carefully wrapped up in a drawer and I made a small web page actually showing about how this my purse was sharpened and how it could be used and I myself couldn't actually use it at all the knife he left was carved so so thinly and finally what tell you what we'll talk about that a little bit later there are so many threads to this story that I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to keep it all together but anyway let's go along with this I know the one-hour television documentary program aired at the end of my series the end of the poet series just within weeks after Ito son died and after it aired I received an interesting package in the post from the producer the woman that lady producer she knew how much that trip Eagle Sam had been useful for me and important for me and what she did was she sent me a package of four video cassettes these are the raw footage that were taped at Eagle sands house that day in 1992 they used bits of it in in the two programs the first program and then the one-hour documentary later and she thought rather than just throw this away on the cutting room floor hey send it today and she sent it she for me taught me like a couple of things one at all there's copyright on this so please you can't tunnel you don't mess around with it this is for your own use and she said don't even tell anybody had done this she's not allowed to do this so she's for ten years keep this under your hat just don't tell anybody maybe this is 1992 this there's no YouTube or anything like that there wasn't a factor but she was worried about copyrights anyway she came to me and there's a yeah the the good interesting parts are the ones used in the programs but there's a full hour of footage of ito-san working on his bench for the most part uninterrupted with me sitting there watching trying to clean as much as I could remember as much as I could and now I've got them here I can watch them again and again and again and of course you know what I'm going to say I'm still learning it's a wonderful wonderful gift to have okay that's the end of the first part of the story ito-san taught me a few things came into my life and he disappeared we now move on some years of course I am myself now I'm still learning still learning practicing as I can I never again had a chance to spend time with another Carver I tried to meet with another major Carver he wouldn't talk to me the day I visited him he hid all his tools yes what would you like to talk about it was that kind of thing so way back to self learning and self progressing no problem where do we get to the next part of the story it's 2010 I've been making prints I'm really getting kind of good at this I'm moving along well and NHK asks me to do a program together with Peter Baraka one of the major on our interviewers and program I was really really nice guy we sit down and talk about what the program is going to be it's going to be a half-hour program about my work and and what I do and how I do it in my history and all everything else comes up and the producer and Peter and I were talking about what sort of topics we could talk about in the program and the producer heard some of my episodes about you know the car rito-san whatever and he asked me to show the life that Ito Sam is wife had given me and as part of the plan he said Dave when we ready to do the filming on this take this knife put your pocket okay I'm like okay whatever so we go and we start filming the program with Peter and the knife is in my pocket as per instructions an interesting thing happened he must have been a really good producer you know he had ideas about how he wanted the program to flow and what he wanted to happen and at one point when I'm sitting chatting with Peter I can see the camera and the producers waving somebody gestures to the pocket I'm like okay okay and then Peter let me show you something and I say to Peter something I pull actually let me just show you the clip from the program itself let me show you something you know one of the Carver's who helped me he's gone now his name was Ito Susumu uh-huh and he had been one of the people I'd visited to help and after he passed away his family who knew me and what I'm doing they gave me some of his tools Wow this is his main carving knife what they call the choke octo uh-huh and this has been unused since the day he passed away uh-huh and I look at this now and compared to the one I use mine is rough and strong his is just delicate beyond belief really there's that much different is a very important point when you think about any field whatsoever maybe sports or anything the young people they do things with with power and vigor and strength uh-huh but look at the old people they do it with not physical energy and physical muscles but they do it with finesse and experience and that I'm still short on I'm 58 uh-huh and hopefully I've got 10 more years 20 more years 30 more years I don't know but one day if I keep up and if I keep studying and practicing one day I will be good enough to use this knife without breaking it hmm maybe one day the way you work now you put so much strength into it you think the thing would actually break up sleep it's too much power too much physical power and not enough the finesse that you were talking about Zachary exactly exactly huh and hopefully I will live long enough to be able to use that knife look forward to seeing the results thank you very much for being with us on the program thank you very much it's been a pleasure talking to you well no perfect way to end the program you know I don't take any credit for it I was just telling stories but the producer had really had a clear idea about how you want to finish this thing off but after I saw the program hear it I didn't remember what I'd said while I was making it but after the program aired they sent me a copy and I could see it I sat and watched that I watched it a couple of times the last conversation was Peter they're thinking about what I had said that the young David couldn't use this knife without breaking it I forget the exact words one day if I work hard enough and study hard enough I will be good enough to use this knife and I sat there thinking well Dave when will that be it was a nice nice words a nice dramatic thing to say to Peter when will that be not tough time I was making this series the mystique of the Japanese print and I thought okay let's grab this thing let's take a step and I sharpened one of my knives in a way that matched this very very delicately very very easy to break and for the next month's print in that series I picked a design that was stunningly stunningly difficult way more difficult than anything had ever tried before you know go for broke it was a reproduction I made it in very small scale it's actually a full open size print by Carnival and the hair is a delicate I took some video at the time I wasn't making youtube videos when I was doing this but I took some video at the time let's take a little bit of it the print came out very well on our I sit here not telling you this story this is six years later I guess I tell you with mixed feelings so I don't think I can do this anymore I know I'm 65 which is not so bad but I'm losing the edge of this especially considering I don't carve so much every day anymore so this may be this little print might turn out to be perhaps the most at least the most delicate and fine print I've ever made I'm not really sure I don't know anyway the story I'm sorry we're really rambling too much I should have planned out what to say bit more carefully we're going to get to the good part now a couple more years go by I open the Essex a shop this is a year and a half ago and there's a story you already know you know this carvers bench came because a gentleman saw the publicity associated with a shop he knew about his father the Carver and one thing led to another well tonight's stories about a similar episode a lady came in one day hope my age I guess with her husband and her daughter and looked around a bit and then she introduced herself Ito sans daughter and granddaughter and I heard this son just jumped up and down you've got to be kidding I've never known who you were and sit down there some tea and and let's talk about this and that and we start chatting a bit and she's telling me stories and her daughter starts crying because they're stories about old Ito sound coming up and coming alive away to quit a great time chatting with each other for a while they said their piece on and went away a couple of weeks later she comes back I guess whatever you know where this is gonna go she brought a few more tools that they'd had lying around the house from that didn't get sent to the museum they're a bit rusty because they weren't taken care of I can clean them up and put him into service she also brought a wooden bucket that he used for sharpening and she bought a selection of small little wood box just stuff that had been randomly left on the house useful or not I don't know and she brought something else she didn't actually know what it was but as soon as I saw it I knew exactly what it was it's eco signs TV block and they're on one side of it is the same hair carving that I watched on one spring afternoon in 1992 and I've looked at it matches exactly what we see in the video it became finished I guess it wasn't just MindView he must have had different TV interviews over the time the block became finished so he started another one this also his TV block and this is what I saw I'm carving in the 1998 visit he was carving this calligraphy up here and just before he died this is his last his last work me and my associates have we been sitting here looking at this block I have to mention his daughter hasn't given this to me it's a really important thing for them what Astron look can I keep this here for a little while because I have a story to tell and she said sure go ahead so I'll return this to her in a couple of weeks and I'll return it to her along with I'll make a DVD dub of that video so she can watch her dad and his knife carving this last little bit of calligraphy up here on this block and that's a great circle here to come round if I'd never met him I don't know you know I was doing okay by myself I'm very proud of my ability to do this by myself and challenge by myself but I'm not such an idiot as to ignore I know I really did learn a huge amount from him and a few things he told me what about hair carving which I should make a video about to pass this on because other people just don't know this there's a specific couple of tricks to do it and if you don't know them there's nothing you can do that well it will help you find it but once you've seen them now I get it I really should pass that information on one last episode which really tells the story by itself I mean I were chatting during one of these sessions I don't remember which and I had shown him my work and I asked him one thing I saw on the bench I'd seen he was carving a great way for something and he must have carved it many times during his career and I asked him I said what do you feel like and we have to carve the same image it comes from a different publisher and all over here the same thing all over again and his response was really really interesting he said if you were a craftsman if you were choking it you'd never ask that I'm choking it it's my job to carve whatever they send me I carve it he said you're just he must have hesitated you're just it's a hobby for you you only carve stuff that you like you choose your own work it's just a hobby for you and he wasn't saying this as an insult just more of as a description you know he he obviously knows I'm a foreigner I'm not really a craftsman of his type at least at that time I wasn't so for him he was a shocking him and I was just doing this as a hobby okay no fight no problem I went home and I thought oh remember that I'll show you and one day when I was making the beauties of four seasons series I got in real trouble where's the autumn print and Aggie that's another story another videos a hugely interesting story but I got in trouble with it after I'd finished carving leaky block and there was no way out but to put that aside and start all over again from step one on that key block and as I was doing so I remembered I remembered vividly what he said it's just a hobby for you not isn't I'm a craftsman and I carved it better the second time than I did the first time you're not supposed to say things like that by your own work anyway this has gone on far too long I don't really know if it's been interesting enough but uh this is the story that I felt should be told and thank you very much if you've come along this far for letting me ban you here thanks again and good night you

Channel: David Bull

Views: 2,176,301

Rating: 4.9220443 out of 5

Keywords: woodblock printmaking, Japanese printmaking, woodblock carving, traditional printmaking, hori-shi, Ito Susumu, Dave Bull

Id: ij9KXgiyDAc

Length: 28min 35sec (1715 seconds)

Published: Mon May 23 2016

Reddit Comments

[u/avery51]

This is pretty great. He has a very calming voice, just like Ross.

[u/gratefulyme]

That was fantastically interesting, thanks so much for sharing!

[u/Nistune]

I have followed him for a while! He makes some really beautiful prints, his videos are super informative showing the process! He does livestreams every so often. I love that you shows doing a bit of everything, woodworking, repairing old boards, collaborations and recreations.

Would love to buy some of the prints...

[u/ktkps]

I found his channel through this video last year in reddit

[u/JCelsius]

Watched this the other night randomly. The part at the end about Ito san's knife was beautiful. At first I thought it was kind of weird he didn't use the knife because it felt like Ito's widow gave him the knife to keep it in use. But then, it was out of respect of Ito's talent that he didn't use it, but one day hope to be able to.

Then the wood block thing just tied it all together. A wonderful story, would honestly make a great film.

[u/CobraKaiTheRealDojo]

man this was awesome! he has so much passion for carving. you can see it in his eyes, as he looks at the carving of his "idol?"

[u/dilboflaggins]

i as im sure many do, have no patience, but i felt that this guy deserves 30 minutes of my time. totally worth it

[u/Bear2120]

Check out Roy Underhill. http://www.pbs.org/woodwrightsshop/home/

[u/[deleted]]

The dark souls of wood carving