Volunteering in Tohoku
Angela Robins Blog
by Angela Robins
2y ago
Hi everyone!  For the next three weeks, I will be assisting the independent filmmaker, Linda Ohama, with a feature-length documentary, Tohoku no Shingetsu (A New Moon Over Tohoku): Stories from Ewate, Miyagi and Fukushima. We will be traveling to different towns along the coast and recording stories of the survivors. I am raising funds to help cover travel expenses, and also to donate to a Tohoku organization that needs support. Please watch this video and consider donating to my fundraiser!  Thank you!  -Ryden-chan ..read more
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Tanohata, Japan
Angela Robins Blog
by Angela Robins
2y ago
Tori gate and chestnut trees at Tanohata’s Ryden shrine. Greetings from a cafe in Sendai station. I left Tanohata yesterday, and I feel a little out of place now that I am back in modern Japan with all of its conveniences and expenses. I have spent the past 3 ½ weeks in Tanohata, which is a relatively rural fishing and farming village in northeastern Japan. I was born there when my parents were teaching English at the local schools. My middle name “Ryden” which means “thunder and lightening” comes from a local shrine. I visited the Ryden shrine on the day I arrived, and on the day that I left ..read more
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Kesennuma, Japan
Angela Robins Blog
by Angela Robins
2y ago
I have only been in Japan for a little over a week and a half, but I have to say it feels much more like a month.  It’s hard to know where to start. So I guess I will tell the stories of these four photos, all of which were taken in Kesennuma, Miyagi, Japan.   Murakami-san in his workshop. #1: I went to Kesennuma this past week to meet one of the few wooden boat builders left in the region. I heard about him from Douglas Brooks, a Vermont-based boat builder who has apprenticed with five Japanese boat builders, and whose boat building class I took earlier this summer. I ha ..read more
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From Tokyo to Tohoku
Angela Robins Blog
by Angela Robins
2y ago
I safely arrived in Tokyo three days ago, and am finally getting into the groove of things. A worker slicing fresh tuna at Tsukiji fish market, Tokyo. It’s been a little non-stop since I arrived. Bright and early on my first morning here, I went to Tsukiji, the world’s largest fish market. Workers were using huge band saws to cut through flash-frozen tuna, and sword-like knives to slice into fresh ones. Throughout the labyrinth of stalls there were also huge clams, octopi, and wide-eyed fish staring up at me as I tried not to get hit by numerous small trucks. It was amazing to see a worl ..read more
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A Day in the Life of a Construction Laborer
Angela Robins Blog
by Angela Robins
3y ago
This past week I made it to my construction work-aversary. I started a year ago removing asphalt shingles from a roof and throwing them into a dumpster that I couldn’t reach the top of. Since then I’ve gotten carpal tunnel, struggled with hand stiffness in the mornings, occasional back pain and general exhaustion! But I made it and I hope there’s something to be said for activating my ability to 我慢 (gaman), or to endure with patience. I’ve learned a ton of useful stuff - but it’s so varied it’s hard to summarize here. So instead, I just wanted to impart one of the simplest things I’ve lea ..read more
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Gouges Down, Nail Gun Up
Angela Robins Blog
by Angela Robins
3y ago
After wrapping up my time at the Center for Furniture Craftsmanship last August, I moved to western Massachusetts and got a job as a laborer at a general contractor/construction company. I have been wanting to learn carpentry for a handful of years now, probably ever since I realized I didn’t know how to make a firewood shed, even though I could build a canoe. Revision: now that I think about it – maybe it predates me learning woodworking and goes back to my late teens. For some reason I had a deep desire to dress up as a Japanese carpenter. Real deal Japanese construction worker, clothing. P ..read more
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Tableware Summer Sale!
Angela Robins Blog
by Angela Robins
3y ago
Hand-carved cherry platter. Hello all! Happy solstice from mid-coastal Maine. I’m working at the Center for Furniture Craftsmanship this summer, doing part time facilities work and part time independent work. I wanted to share that I have a new batch of items in my online shop - many of them are from the large diameter cherry log I acquired this spring. The scale of the tree allowed me to make plates and trays that will have minimal movement overtime because they’re from quartersawn and riftsawn sections (sections where the grain is relatively perpendicular to the blank & parallel to one ..read more
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Wagata-bon (我谷盆): The Life of a Japanese Folk Craft
Angela Robins Blog
by Angela Robins
3y ago
Moriguchi’s workbench & a wagata-bon in progress. When I walked into the classroom and counted five Japanese sharpening stones in the kitchen sink, I knew I was in the right place. Japanese water stones for sharpening. It was Wood Week at North House Folk School, and two Japanese woodworkers had traveled all the way to northern Minnesota to share their knowledge. I drove from coastal Maine, past the finger lakes and four great lakes, to make it to this special event. Shinichi Moriguchi, a master tray carver, and Masashi Kutsuwa, a professor and green woodworker at Gifu Academy of Forest ..read more
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Cultivating a Positive Platitude
Angela Robins Blog
by Angela Robins
3y ago
A recently finished hand-carved cherry platter. I just wrapped up my 6-week fellowship at the Center for Furniture Craftsmanship (CFC) in Rockport, Maine, and am now headed west for a month of studying and teaching in Minnesota (you can check out my classes here). I went to CFC with hopes of using new material (ie not 8” diameter birch, am I right?!), and luckily was able to get a hold of a large diameter cherry log. As I mentioned earlier, I turned a series of plate sets on the lathe, but I also did a handful of hand-carved serving platters. Prior to this fellowship in Maine, I had only carv ..read more
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Plates & Platters: My Fellowship in Maine
Angela Robins Blog
by Angela Robins
3y ago
Over the past month, I’ve been participating in a fellowship at the Center for Furniture Craftsmanship in Rockport, Maine. I was here last March as well, and it’s a treat returning to a familiar place. The school’s main programs are longer-term woodworking intensives in furniture making & woodturning, but they also have an awesome fellowship program for professional woodworkers who are at various stages in their careers, to develop their designs and produce new work. I’m here for a six week stint, but some people stay up to six months. There is a fully equipped woodworking shop, lumber ons ..read more
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