Homer L. Dodge Lecture Series: ‘A Way of Learning: An Apprentice Boatbuilder in Japan’ with Douglas Brooks

Ways of Learning: An Apprentice Boatbuilder in Japan

Dennis Brooks

August 4 | 5:30pm Youtube Live Stream: https://www.youtube.com/live/5Ttco0ZjHow?feature=share When people think about Japan, they usually have in their minds images of manga and anime, busy urban centers, and an economy based on innovations in electronics.  Most people do not know that there is also a second Japan, wherein lies a rich history of traditional arts and crafts, many of which are fast disappearing.  Douglas Brooks has apprenticed with boatbuilders from throughout Japan since 1996, building over a dozen types of traditional wooden boats. Brooks’ teachers were all in their seventies and eighties when he worked with them, and he is the sole apprentice for seven of his nine teachers. In this slide talk he will share his experiences with traditional crafts drawn from twenty-six trips to Japan since 1990, visiting all forty-seven prefectures. Brooks’ research in Japan focuses on the techniques and design secrets of the craft.  These techniques have been passed from master to apprentice with almost no written record.  His book, Japanese Wooden Boatbuilding is the first comprehensive survey of the craft, spanning his first five apprenticeships and including a chapter on Japan’s last traditional shipwright. Brooks will also talk about the nature of craft education in Japan; an ethic that is largely at odds with our notions of teaching in the West.  The apprentice system produced craftspeople with incomparable skills, yet it required an intense devotion and seriousness from participants.  Brooks has experienced first-hand what it is like to learn when the apprentice is forbidden from speaking.  At the core of this process is the belief that one learns by observation and perseverance. Japan’s last gen