Japan's New Wave


Shizo and Takeo
ARITA



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EXHIBIT POSTERS

Shizuo
ARITA

Takeo
ARITA

 

Shizuo Arita, 73, is a retired corporate executive who has been making pipes for over thirty years, first as a hobby and now as an avocation. Shizuo’s quirky, distinctively-shaped pipes are extremely popular among a group of Japanese pipe-smokers and the briars sell almost as quickly as Arita-san can make them.

Takeo Arita, 37, worked as an architectural draftsman before he began pursuing his father’s hobby. Using some of the same machines and sharing a number of techniques, it’s surprising how different the pipes of father and son turn out to be.

A comparison of Arita pipes suggests the wide variety of cultural and aesthetic influences within Japan. Shizuo’s pipes may be said to express standards of beauty associated with an older, more rural, more nature-based culture. Shizuo’s shapes are often clay-like, asymmetrical, organic, and they exude an “earthy,” unrefined aura.

By contrast, Takeo’s designs seem young, sophisticated, fast, urban. Many of his pipes contain distinctly Japanese lines and forms, but these are usually presented in balanced compositions of considerable refinement. Takeo may exemplify the “international style” in contemporary Japan, a dynamic blending of tradition and innovation.

Of course, father and son occasionally dip into each other’s repertoires: Takeo experiments with the mushroom shape, well-loved by his father;  Shizuo plays around with dynamically-shaped, carefully-balanced designs, like his son.



Like father, like son ...



Takeo Arita demonstrates the way he and his father drill the tobacco chamber for their pipes. Takeo prepares himself carefully for this crucial step in the pipe-making process, entering almost a meditative state before taking the drill in his hand.

Why don’t Shizuo and Takeo use a lathe or drill press like most other pipe-makers? It’s mostly a matter of habit …(or tradition).



Shizuo Arita occasionally uses Takeo’s technique of separating the stem not at the briar-line but within the ebonite itself. è

Like son, like father ...


In this recent pipe, Shizuo incorporates some of Takeo’s sleek modern lines into his older, more rustic aesthetic.



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