The invasion of Japanese Joinery
Paul Discoe
In 1970 Paul Discoe, at the time, an American born Zen priest was sent to Japan, by his teacher Shunryu Suzuki, to study Temple building. Upon his return to California, after a 5 year apprenticeship, Paul started to build “Japanese” buildings at the SanFrancisco Zen Center’s monastic retreat center, Tassajara. During the same period, [Makoto Imai] (http://www.imaimakoto.com/) had returned to California from Japan in 1978 after his 5-year apprenticeship in carpentry plus 9 years as a teahouse and temple builder.
Hida Tools
The Japanese joinery tools, planes, chisels and saws, that Paul Discoe and Makoto Imai were using were distinctly different from the traditional European and American woodworking tools. This period in time sparked a great renaissance in the Japanese aesthetic, and in particular, Japanese joinery. In response to requests from San Francisco Bay Area woodworkers to get tools like those being used by Paul Discoe and Makoto Imai, [Hida Tool Co] (http://www.hidatool.com/index.php?route=common/home). was started in 1982 in San Rafael. Hida Tool later moved to it’s current location in Berkeley in 1984.
The carpentry crew at Green Gulch
In 1982 I joined the Japanese carpentry crew at Green Gulch Farm in Muir Beach under the tutelage of Paul Discoe. Green Gulch, a branch of the San Francisco Zen Center was undergoing it’s own renaissance with the growing interest in Zen Buddhism and the international success of Shunryu Suzuki’s book, [Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind] (http://www.amazon.com/Zen-Mind-Beginners-Shunryu-Suzuki/dp/1590308492). I was not a newcomer to using and sharpening hand tools, having gone through a traditional training in carpentry and joinery in England, but the Japanese tools were completely new and foreign to me. The pull saws with both crosscut and rip teeth on the same blade, planes with wooden bodies that pull instead of push, and both plane blades and chisels forged by methods developed by the blacksmiths who created the famous samurai swords.
Blood in the water
My first Japanese tools included a ten piece chisel set, three wooden planes and a couple of saws. Now I had to learn to use them. In order use Japanese planes and chisels, a carpenter needs to keep the high tensile steel blades as sharp as a razor. The Japanese water stones are first soaked in water and then used over a water trough. The fingers stay as close the the edge of the blade as possible and using a rhythmic back a forth movement without rocking the blade on the stone, the blade is sharpened. The first time I saw blood in the water I realized that I had sharpened away a layer of skin on a number of fingers, and that hurts.
An understanding of Japanese Joinery
Once a week, Paul Discoe taught a short class on Japanese joinery, the rest of the time was practical hands-on learning. Soon I understood that Japanese joinery was far more advanced than any western woodworking system. Japanese wooden temples are built with the equivalent engineering and intricacy of European cathedrals. In an aha moment, I saw how Japanese joinery was more akin to the highest art of stone masonry. No wonder the Japanese held their best carpenters in such high esteem, naming them as Japanese treasures.
Hiroshi Sakaguchi
One such treasure, Hiroshi Sakaguchi, a teahouse builder, arrived at Green Gulch in 1983 to help complete the unfinished tea house. He was a master. The carpentry crew also held him in great esteem, and like with other traditional Japanese masters, one learnt by watching only, there was no official teaching. I became good friends with Hiroshi, and still am to this day. I introduced Hiroshi to another friend, Jacques, in Mendocino. Jacques commissioned Hiroshi to build him a joinery post and beam barn made of reclaimed old growth redwood. The barn raising in October of 1989 was a wonderful experience of friends getting together in a communal tradition hundreds of years old, and amongst other accomplished carpenters Hiroshi was most certainly the master.
Where are they now?
As it happens, Paul Discoe and Hiroshi Sakaguchi both live in west Sonoma County, a few miles from each other as the crow flies. Paul’s main body of work since leaving Zen Center has been with the company he founded, [Joinery Structures] (http://www.joinerystructures.com/). Hiroshi has his company [Ki Arts] (http://www.kiarts.com/index.html), and works out of his workshop next to his house.
In a future jot
I will jot more about the barn raising, including construction pictures, in a future post, and there will also be more about Master Hiroshi Sakaguchi and Paul Discoe.