It’s been a wild week and my head is still spinning.

This workshop has been in the works since 2019. Kotaro and Shuko Okubo and our friend Masashi Kutsuwa came from Japan to run a spoon carving workshop at our school. Kotaro taught, Masashi translated, and Shuko ran the pop-up and documented the event.

I wrote about Kotaro here. https://www.woodspirithandcraft.com/blog/kotaro-okubo-japanese-spoon-carver. His wife Shuko applies all the urushi lacquer on Kotaro’s spoons as well as runs a small craft gallery. They live in Matsumoto city in Nagano prefecture.

Kotaro is a prolific spoon carver who specializes in the use of the nankin kanna—a type of Japanese spokeshave. With this type of tool (he has many shapes and sizes) Kotaro carves 360 days in the year and makes 6,000 each year! He’s likely one of the most prolific hand tool spoon carvers in the world. I consider him a true master. He thoroughly understands his tools, his material, technique and design.

His website is here and Shuko’s gallery website

Here’s a short documentary on him with English subtitles.

Classes like this are rare in Japan or in the States for that matter. Perhaps a once in a lifetime experience. If you hesitated about signing up you missed out. It was an amazing to be taught by a master and one who is of a different culture is icing on the cake.

Taking a class taught in a foreign language is also special. Things take time. You have to be patient while questions, thoughts, ideas move from English to Japanese and then back to English. It cultivates clarity, patience, and more important….empathy. It’s natural that you want to understand what’s being said for yourself so you try to understand even though you don’t know the words.

students watching intently as Kotaro demonstrates

The class was attended by folks from Colorado, Minnesota, Iowa, Michigan, Canada, and two from Ashland. My past assistant Joey came and my current assistant Leo got to sit in and observe (fringe benefits to the job).

Kotaro uses a nankin kanna to carve a spatula — Kotaro demonstrating the use of nankin kanna

Kotaro brought some resin bonded diamond stones which were a new product to me. These stones feel more like regular water stones than the metal bonded diamond stones I’m used to. Metal bonded diamond stones have diamonds on the surface only. They stay flat, but the diamonds wear out over time and become less effective. Resin bonded diamond stones don’t become less effective because new diamonds are constantly released through use. They do need to be flattened like a regular water stone, which means they become thinner over time, however they are harder so they stay flat longer than regular water stones. There are pro’s and con’s to everything.

Kotaro demonstrating how to use one hand to hold spokeshave

The students carved multiple spatula’s and spoons from Japanese Chestnut, Japanese Cherry and local Silver Maple. They became comfortable with a new tool, and got to practice sharpening. They all learned an incredible amount from a master woodworker. And left inspired.

We hosted a Public Lecture and Demonstration, Pop-up Shop and Reception for our local community a few days later during our regular craft night. Kotaro carved and talked about his work. Masashi spoke about his work organizing the tool making blacksmiths of Japan, green woodworking and teaching at Gifu Forest Academy. We recorded both and put them on Youtube. Kotaro’s talk. Masashi’s talk

I wish I could be more like Kotaro. His single minded focus and prolific work ethic is amazing, as well as his dedication to wooden utensils. I am more scattered and full of different interests. But, I can’t wait to put what I learned from Kotaro to use over the next few weeks as I carve piles of spoons to take to Handworks and Europe in September.

Japanese Spoon Carving Class at the Woodspirit School

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