A Kind Testimonial for the Maine Japanese Woodworking Festival
In updating the website for the Maine Japanese Woodworking Festival, I asked prior attendees for short testimonials, Matt Connorton wrote this kind and generous letter. Thank you Matt.
The Traditional Japanese Carpentry community in North America is fairly close knit. Most of us know each other or at least of each other. Some of us have worked together and many of us have shared time together at seminars and Kezurou Kai USA events and group projects. Despite the scarcity of traditional projects here, interest in Japanese woodworking methods and tools is strong, which has led to a fair number of skilled professional and amateur practitioners being scattered across the continent. It is with this in mind that I want to discuss Jason Fox.
Jason is a young person who along with his family recently moved to central Maine with one of the purposes of that move being to enable them to create a place where sharing their passion and commitment to Traditional Japanese Carpentry can occur. They held their first such event last July, the Maine Japanese Woodworking Festival, drawing attendees from all over for a full three days of activities. This is important for several reasons but in my opinion none more so than that they are located in the eastern United States, providing easy access to people all over the eastern seaboard and the mid-west. Most of the events are on the west coast, with a preponderance in the Bay Area of California. There are good reasons for this, the most obvious one being that the preponderance of practitioners and associated suppliers are there as well. Still, there is an obvious need for venues in the east, where there are a fair number of experienced practitioners and a great many people of every range of ability who are eager to share time to exchange ideas and expand their knowledge and understanding. Jason, his wife Lauren and their daughter Aurora are establishing a true home base for these kind of activities. This is a great gift to all of us who wish to foster and promote the work and I am deeply grateful.
New England has not seen this kind of effort since the 1980s, when Mahogany Masterpieces in New Hampshire held three successive years of very popular events in Bear Brook State Park. It was there that I met not only my most important Japanese teachers - masters all – but also many craftspeople who became very dear friends and we continue to support each other. One such fellow attendee recently passed away, Duncan McMaster. Duncan held several events at is Fairfield, Iowa shop and his teaching tree (if you will) is quite large and includes one of Jason’s teachers, Yann Giguere, who provided instruction and performed demonstrations at last July’s Festival. We are at the beginning of what I hope and expect will become a great tradition in its own right. I look forward to the upcoming event and as many future events as I am able to attend. I look forward to seeing fellow attendees from last year again and of course meeting new people too. Many many thanks to Aurora, Lauren and Jason for providing us with the opportunity and the facility to converge and celebrate our mutual passion.