Last week, there was a festival “Matsuri” at our neighborhood temple (YOU TUBE video), the Komyoji. Every year they have an event at the temple called Ojuya, which means a Buddhist memorial service for the repose of the dead for 3 days. The temple belongs to the Jodo ... Continue Reading
In this blog I will give a quick overview of the development of Kamakura Bori in the different periods of Japan history. The origin of Kamakura Bori starts in the Kamakura Period (1185-1333) when the Shogun Minamoto Yoritomo establishe his military government in Kamakura on 1192 ... Continue Reading
Yesterday, we visited the studio of the Gotoh family. Normally, they don’t allow visitors to enter the studio, but we were very lucky and this was a big favor. The studio is behind the store and is like an old Japanese big house, all from wood with elevated floors for the a ... Continue Reading
Last week, I had an interview with the head of the Gotoh family, Gotoh Keiko. This family is one of the two families left who have been sculpting Buddhist images since the Kamakura Period and is heir to the craftsmanship handed down from father to son for 28 generations. But now ... Continue Reading
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 s ... Continue Reading
Kamakura has of course a Kamakura Bori Museum: Kamakura Bori Kaikan. It is situated in the middle of the city on the main street on the way to the Tsurugaoka Hachimangu Shrine, Kamakura’s most important shrine, which was founded by Monamoto Yoriyoshi in 1063, and enlarged ... Continue Reading
When Kamakura was the seat of power for the ruling Shogunate in around 1200AD, monk sculptors copied the technique of carving and lacquering wood imported from China into Buddhist images. This way grew and developed into the art of Kamakura Bori.* The first feature is the techni ... Continue Reading
I live in Kamakura (one hour south of Tokyo) and feel very fortunate. It is the ancient capital of the first shogun, Minamoto yo Yoritomo, of the 12th and 13th century, known as the Kamakura Period (1192-1333). A Shogun, “Commander in Chief”, is the military ran ... Continue Reading
