58/365: Bookbinding Workshop Day 2
February 27th, 2011 in Daily, Projects
Today’s workshop moved from Rina City to one of the buildings in the “Shutter Town” area. My location, #7 on the map, was inside of an old Pachinko parlor which hadn’t been used for some 30 odd years. It was really awesome to work inside a building that was part of Kanoya’s past in an effort to show people the possibility of a lively street market again in the future. Miyuki’s parents, who have run the Liquor Shop across the street since the Edo period, said that this weekends events truly reminded them of how active this area (Kitada-chou) once was on a daily basis. Showing its age, the light ballasts inside would occasionally burst into a cloud of smoke and ozone. One of the staff would then run to the back, flip the breaker, climb up and simply snip that ballast’s power line and flip everything back on.
The day started with a some happy kid customers who were surprisingly energetic for 9:30am on a rainy Sunday morning.
First customer of the day!
The kids were quickly followed by a group of three grandma’s who sincerely promised to come when they saw the workshop on Saturday. They wanted to bring their own existing books to re-bind, which I did gladly (for a small fee :)
They also made new books of their own and asked when I was holding this workshop again. I’d gladly organize another event if I know people will come to it!
Two new books and one calligraphy book re-bound by me.
The next customer created what to most other people must have been the most bizarre scene all weekend: the American helping the Peanut-man bind a book:
Had a lot of interesting characters stop by after lunch, including two of my co-workers, friends, and fellow artisans.
Ichiro from Arahaem
Kihara-sensei
Nagai-sensei
Yoshida Shiro, an amazing artisan from Saga Prefecture. Awesome guy!
stampin' it up, literally, using every stamp I brought and putting pen to paper on every page in his book.
Impeccable posture.
Most Creative Book Cover!
Great fun, totally exhausting, and left me wanting to organize more public workshops while I am here. Thanks again to Arahaem, GENKI BROTHERS, Kitada-cho businesses, et al for hosting the Rose Color Market this year. I really hope they are able to put this on again next year!
