|
Kazuhiro
FUKUDA
carver of Tsuge’s
Ikebana pipes |
One of the elder statesmen of high-end pipe carvers in Japan,
Kazuhiro Fukuda
has been making pipes for almost 60 years. Most of that time he has been solely
responsible for Tsuge’s famous
Ikebanas. In the early 1970’s, Fukuda-san was
one of the first Japanese pipe-makers to spend time in Denmark with Sixten
Ivarsson. He brought back to Japan Sixten’s revolutionary approach to pipe
design and has spent most of his life both emulating the Danish style of
pipe-making and refashioning it with his Japanese sensibilities.
As a member of the Tsuge Pipe
Company, Fukuda-san never developed quite as
personal a style as independent artisnal carvers like Tokutomi. Yet the Fukuda
Ikebana exudes a distinctive personality, perhaps most obvious in those designs
which stray farthest from the pantheon of Ivarsson-inspired shapes – for
example, the “pots” which resemble Japanese ceramics or the use of plateau-rims
that bring to mind flowers or garden plantings. Fukuda-san’s use of asymmetry is
also quite Japanese and can add an unexpected plasticity (or a touch of
wittiness) to the most familiar Danish shape. |
