Bamboo is a plant that has been a part of people’s lives since ancient times. Taking advantage of its beauty, flexibility, and rapid growth, people have skillfully processed bamboo and used it as daily utensils, building materials, and works of art. Bamboo craftsman Matsumoto Hafu has a deep respect for bamboo and continues to create works that bring out the best of bamboo’s charm. In recent years, Matsumoto’s works, such as his collaboration with the famous overseas brand LOEWE, have led many people into the fascinating world of bamboo crafts.
Pioneering New Beauty in Bamboo CraftsPioneering New Beauty in Bamboo Crafts
Based in Minami-Boso City, Chiba Prefecture, bamboo craftsman Hafu Matsumoto has been active not only in Japan but also in New York, Italy, and other countries. Pursuing the beauty of bamboo’s unique form, he has created a wide variety of works, from detailed Ajiro-weave works to bamboo designs, and has received numerous prestigious awards, including the Newcomer’s Prize at the 54th Japan Traditional Crafts Exhibition in 2007, the Grand Prize at the 48th East Japan Traditional Crafts Exhibition in 2008, and the Governor of Tokyo’s Prize at the 61st Japan Traditional Crafts Exhibition in 2014. In 2017, he had a solo exhibition at Ippodo New York.
Ms. Matsumoto studied under the traditional school of bamboo crafts as a grandson of Iizuka Rokansai, a leading figure in Japanese bamboo crafts, and a student of Iizuka Shokansai, a master craftsman and Living National Treasure (holder of Important Intangible Cultural Property).
Meet the Master
I want to do work that appeals to people, work that I can pursue for the rest of my life. One day, he visited a traditional Japanese crafts exhibition and was shocked to see his master’s work on display.
When I saw his ‘stitching decorative box,’ I was amazed that such an exquisite work could be made from bamboo. I was looking for something I could pursue for the rest of my life, and I thought, ‘This is it! I thought, ‘This is it!
It was also an encounter with bamboo crafts that seemed to be guided by fate.
The next day, he visited his master and became an apprentice. For six months, he was busy with weeding, cleaning the house, running errands, etc., and was unable to even touch the bamboo. Later, he learned how to make materials and learn the six-strand weave, which has six knitting patterns, by watching and learning from others.
Mr. Matsumoto told us the following episode from those days. He learned by watching the shadows of his master’s knitting, and when he came home, the first thing he did was to draw the shadows on graph paper. Learning with your body. This is the culture of handwork, which is based on the basics to create something more creative. Matsumoto says, “As you pursue a technique, it becomes more and more ingrained in your body.” He continues, “People often say, ‘Watch and steal,’ which is probably a good thing about the old apprentice system. He was strict, but when I think about it now, he was kind to me. I am able to do my work now thanks to him. It’s the same as a parent’s love,” he said, looking back on those days with nostalgia.
Knowing the properties of bamboo and using a variety of techniques to create works of art
Mr. Matsumoto moved his base of operations from his home town of Sunamachi, Tokyo, to the Boso region of Chiba in 1988. This is because Chiba has long been a center of high-quality bamboo production.
There are many types of bamboo, including madake, moso bamboo, hachiku, and me-dake. Bamboo has a wide range of uses, including containers such as baskets, construction materials such as the frame of a straw-bale roof, hedges, landscaping, and, when burned, bamboo charcoal.
However, the number of bamboo wholesalers in the Boso region, which once numbered nearly 20, has dwindled to only one. In order to purchase materials, Mr. Matsumoto sometimes asks his acquaintances to introduce him to mountains where he cuts green bamboo himself. He also began making bleached bamboo, which is carefully washed one by one, roasted with a special gas burner, blown up, and dried in the sun.
Mr. Matsumoto actually knew the bleaching process in his head, but on the contrary, he noticed the qualities of bamboo and said with a smile, “It became more interesting. With a thorough knowledge of the qualities of bamboo, he uses a variety of techniques to sublimate his work to his image.
Unique Beauty
The gallery attached to his home displays a wide variety of works, including flower baskets, vases, decorative boxes, bamboo and leather collaboration products, Noshitake objects, and other strong and dynamic pieces, as well as finely torn and exquisitely woven pieces, which are just some of the many works that Matsumoto has created over the past half century using all of his skills. The exhibition also features a wide variety of works.
Influenced by his master, Kogansai, Matsumoto uses a wide variety of techniques to create works that are delicate, graceful, and dignified, making the most of the bamboo’s natural qualities.
The most striking feature of Matsumoto’s handiwork is the technique of weaving, which has been passed down through the generations in the Iizuka family, his master. I was amazed by the technique of stitch weaving, and its beauty led me to this path,” he says. Weaving several thin, uniform bamboo strips into a bundle is a highly technical skill, but the finished product is overflowing with the texture and beauty of bamboo, making the most of the materials that are the basis of bamboo craftsmanship.
Communicating Japan’s Attractiveness through Bamboo Crafts
On the other hand, many buyers and collectors are from overseas, including Europe and the U.S. Overseas collectors have a deep knowledge of Japanese culture and the history of bamboo. Bamboo is highly valued as “art” that transcends the common image in Japan as a tool for daily life. This is probably because the late American collector Lloyd Kotzen introduced his collection of bamboo crafts in New York and showed the world the unique beauty of bamboo. Based on this, Mr. Matsumoto has been looking overseas to enhance the value of bamboo crafts and to convey the charm of Japan through bamboo.
Drawing beauty from the characteristics of materials
In 2019, he presented a collaborative work with Spanish fashion brand LOEWE. Loewe’s creative director, Jonathan Anderson, approached him to create a collaborative work of bamboo and leather. Among them, the work woven by Mr. Matsumoto using Loewe’s leather with a color like real bamboo, showed the essence of what he has cultivated and the breath of a new era.
In 2024, he will also exhibit a lampshade at the Milano Salone Internazionale del Mobile in Milan. The technique of skillfully handling the extensibility of bamboo, obtained through years of training, was inspired by “sunlight filtering through a bamboo thicket. It expressed a gentle light.
From a Western point of view, bamboo is something oriental and mysterious, and the collaboration with LOEWE made me rediscover the beauty of bamboo,” said Matsumoto. He says he was made aware of the beauty of bamboo’s knots, and is now devoting himself to noshitake works.
Half a century of history with bamboo crafts, and we will continue to deal with it.
After half a century of facing bamboo, his creative spirit has not ceased, as has his collaboration with foreign brands. Matsumoto says, “As I have come to understand the freedom and inconvenience of bamboo, I want to express bamboo more. And, “In the past, good work was partly about addition, but now I feel that subtraction is more beautiful,” he says. Through his daily devotion, he has arrived at the effects of addition and the aesthetics of subtraction. The idea is to draw out the essence by subtracting the superfluous.
In this context, Matsumoto says, “My goal for the future is to look back on the path I have taken since I was 20 years old. He will continue to follow his mentor’s aspirations, never forgetting his original intentions, and continue to explore, play, and ambitiously take on new challenges. He will continue to create works that take advantage of the natural beauty of bamboo’s formative qualities. Matsumoto will continue to captivate many people by capturing the inherent beauty of bamboo and the possibilities of traditional techniques in her works.
