An Artistic Approach to Bamboo

(CBS)  Originally broadcast May 17, 2009

Bamboo is the culinary delight of pandas . . . and the shoots are palate-pleasers for humans.

Bamboo can be sliced and molded so we can plank our floors with it, or make fabrics ready to wear . . . or just make soothing music.

All this from something that is really a big weed, once growing wild across Asia.

Trust the Japanese to make something ordinary into something extraordinary . . . taking the design of everyday bamboo items and turning it into an art form that is evolving still.

Designs so intricate they have no beginning or end, such as one by Shochiko Tanabe.

"The challenge is keeping traditional methods while making something that develops bamboo art for a new generation," he said through a translator.

Tanabe's story begins centuries ago . . . in Japanese history and his family's heritage.

The Chinese brought bamboo to Japan, and craftsmen here shaped vases, carrying cases and baskets. It was all very practical.

Tanabe's great-grandfather, born in the late 1800s, took traditional Chinese design to its peak by creating a weave so intricate it was prized then and treasured now.

But Tanabe's grandfather . . . went his own way, wanting to capture Japan's passion for delicacy.

And so began a family tradition of breaking with tradition.

(CBS)

At a recent exhibition, Tanabe's father showed off his work (left). It broke tradition because it was done just to please the eye.

And after an older generation abandoned the practical for the pretty, it encouraged the next generation to experiment with shapes and sizes.

Bamboo today is no longer about baskets.

So Tanabe's father was not exactly surprised when his son (who was playing with bamboo at age three) went his own way. "What my son designs is more like sculpture," he said.

They still work together every day.

Why do something different?

"If bamboo artists keep making the same things, people will feel bored and bamboo art will die out," Tanabe said. "But if I create something new, the world will realize bamboo can be used for different things."

But there can still be homage to the old. Around the top of one piece is the family's well-known weave. Then Tanabe added strips of different colors - some natural and some dyed.

(CBS)

And a few of his works are big. Tanabe showed Petersen one (left) he said represents connection. "This is the image of my father and my mother. My existence was connected with their love, energy and power, so I could be a bamboo artist."

And now there is a connection to the next generation . . . his daughter.

"Is she interested in bamboo yet?" Petersen asked.

"She is only nine months old!" Tanabe laughed, adding, "If she enjoys living with bamboo around her as I did, she will like bamboo."

Her name is Sarara, and if she wants to join the family business, her father says he will teach her to shape what is hers and hers alone.

With new images still to come from artists still to be trained, the Tanabes and others who love bamboo believe it is an art that will continue to survive . . . and to surprise.

[erasmus111]

by toldyouso29 August 31, 2009 7:27 AM EDT
Pandas are from China. If there is a shortage of bamboo in China it has nothing to do with the use of bamboo or the growing of use in bamboo in Japan. It is no more different than YOU drinking or using water to swim, bathe in, cook in and water an unneeded lawn while people all over the world (as well as animals including Pandas) are dying of thirst due to drought.



Canada supplies the U.S with water. Why? Because they abuse their own. So does that mean that us Canadians should say "screw you"?

[erasmus111]

Sounds good, but what about the Panda Bears that are running out of food?

[toldyouso29]

Your comment is not relevant. Bamboo grows EVERYWHERE. In Japan, in the US--everywhere and it is a weed which if not contained--takes over almost any space. Panda's not only eat bamboo they also eat other things :like honey, eggs, etc. But here is why your comment is not relevant. This artist is in JAPAN. There are no Pandas in the wild in Japan.

Pandas are from China. If there is a shortage of bamboo in China it has nothing to do with the use of bamboo or the growing of use in bamboo in Japan. It is no more different than YOU drinking or using water to swim, bathe in, cook in and water an unneeded lawn while people all over the world (as well as animals including Pandas) are dying of thirst due to drought. The situation in one place has never mitigated or precluded the use of resources in another because technically, though America can grow bamoo AND has water and so does Japan and though both may waste, the logistics and reality is this--China's panda's habitat is threatened by the advance of a growing population in need of land for farming. China already has a water shortage. NO matter if someone uses bamboo or any other resource in another part of the world--it will not change the reality and needs in another part.

IF you disagree--abstain from a pool, don't water your lawn, minimize your use of water and other resources and note how long your failure to use takes before resources somehow "grow" and can be used in another part of the world.

This artist is in Japan, his bamboo and use has absolutely nothing to do with Panda's in China. And before you consider the Panda in China, you may want to consider the displacement and endangerment of our own animals due to our continual logging and use of wood from everything from making toilet paper, to furniture, to creating the structures we live in--even waste pulp represents trees and each logged tree represents decades if not years of life, extinguished, unable to provide more oxygen, shelter to animals, cover for soils and animals, etc.

What about the Pandas? What about the wolves, the coyotes, the cougars, etc in our own country?

[reveal5]

In spite of all the foolishness of the world.. In spite of the wars, pestilence, famine, lack of education....There are those who pursue beauty. There are those who seek to bring beauty to the world and all its inhabitants. God bless. Those who seek to uplift the senses and magnify creation bring good and not evil to the world. Artists seek wonderment and then share.

[toldyouso29]

Artists rarely seek wonderment--if that occurs it is simply a by product of creation. Artists seek to redefine perception using items around them to try to shape, create, challenge and convey the abstract or to challenge, create and shape an additional awareness of the mundane--if wonder is created by that--great--but what we really are seeking is to redefine perception and move beyond wonder to THINKING.