And then last Saturday, learning what it was all about, we took a two-hour Experience class.

The Masters Committee is headquartered in the Kamakura Kaikan, Assembly Hall, above the museum. The committee was established in 1961, and at present consists of twenty-one groups and some 6,000 members. The Masters Committee is dedicated to the propagation of authentic Kamakura Bori techniques. Members are ranked in a licensing system according to their ability, with the opportunity to become teachers. Aside from various exhibitions in Japan, Kamakura Bori is also being introduced abroad through exhibitions such as one held at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London in 2001.

Therefore, classes are given to study the basic skills needed to  pass on this wonderful traditional handicraft to later generations, the simple joy of carving wood with your own hands.
A three-year Basic Class is an introductory course to the acquisition of the fundamental techniques. Then other classes are offered like our two-hour Experience class.

We were welcomed by our teacher and choose out little plate for the carving. Then we headed to one of the classrooms where another couple, who visited Kamakura from Nagoya, joined us.

She started with explaining how to hold the knife, the angle position of your hand and the direction of the cutting so not to hurt yourself.



Then you have to cut away the black lines and black spaces in your plate. Quite a challenging task! You have  to carve the line straight and continuous. Then even more difficult are the curved lines and cutting in depth.





This is a practice block for straight lines. You have them also for lots of different curved line designs.

Here I’m carving my Sakura plate. It is strenuous
work and you sometimes almost get a cramp in your hands.You are still too tense. Of course, the first time.

VIDEO of the carving: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjXLzOdL5lY

This is the result of the finished carved plate. Then the lacquering process starts described 2 blogs ago on Sept. 24 which can take about 40 layers and 1  month to complete. So, that was not included in the course.





Next door was an advanced class. They were carving already the most beautiful works.






She is carving an intricate design on a mirror frame. And not just a small frame!

This person wrapped his drawing design completely around this box. And you can see how he had to work in depth to lift out the form of the grapes to make it 3D.