The Blue Furoshiki
By Robert Harrison Crowder
Yasumasa Tanano, USA (2005)
Review by Susan House Wade
Though better known for his Japanese folding screen paintings, California-based artist and author Robert Crowder is also a writer of prose and poetry, which detail accounts of his Japanese experiences. In The Blue Furoshiki, he ventures through time and place to recount bygone chapters of daily life in Japan.
Crowder lived in Japan between 1934 and 1943. During this time, he taught English at the Fifth Imperial Higher School (now Kumamoto University), and was impacted very significantly by the natural environment which he observed during his stay in Kyushu. He also studied tsuketate painting under Nami Ogata and nihon-ga under Shunkoh Mochizuki, who were instrumental in helping him to develop his inimitable painting style.
Crowder travelled the length and breadth of Japan, finding it relatively inexpensive and with few restrictions for the foreign enthusiast. He wrote a number of articles about these travels for Tourist magazine, which was published by the Japan Travel Bureau (begun as a small information kiosk in Tokyo Station in 1912.) Foreign travellers relied heavily on articles such as Crowder's to more effectively plan their journeys within Japan at that time. Between 1937 and 1940, the magazine carried 27 of his articles and five of his poems.
In December 1941, Crowder was unfortunately incarcerated as a prisoner of war. After 18 months, he was returned to the United States as part of a prisoner exchange programme between the two countries. A memoir of that time was published in Japan in 1996 under the title My Lost Japan (ISBN 4-7512-0636-2).
Comprising 44 poems, and accompanied by 10 of Crowder's own block prints, The Blue Furoshiki brings to life a Japan of what some might term a past age (but is it really?) He dedicates this volume of poetry to 'the memory of happy days in Japan,' and indeed he recalls those images vividly.
Crowder beckons to the reader:
Untie this Blue Furoshiki,
And discover,
Traced impressions
from
a faded Past.
Flowering trees, mountains and streams all form a vivid composite of Crowder's time in Japan. Temples and shrines and their precincts are explored seemingly inch by inch, while his travel experiences are also carefully considered Not only do the words evoke his own happy memories, but they do the same for the many readers who have had the opportunity to spend similar pleasant times in Japan. Those who do not know the country well begin to sense the importance of seasonality and nature in Japanese life.
As with his folding screens, which have recently included depictions of Endangered Species of Japan, (exhibited in Doizaki Gallery, Japanese American Cultural Center, Los Angeles, 2002), Crowder demonstrates here a very special talent for understanding and presenting the elements of his experiences from a very unique perspective. The reader moves effortlessly through Japan with Crowder as his guide.
In The Pottery Show (p32), Crowder exclaims with delight at having found just the right piece of Oribe ware - 'that green of violent, yet subtle hue,' at a show at The Cultural Center. This, after having admired the ruby red and brown and blue -- teapots, bowls, plates and sake cups. Now approaching 95, the descriptions of Japanese life as outlined by Crowder seem as vivid today as they must have been nearly 70 years ago.
A useful multi-page glossary provides explanations as to the terminology which may be unknown to some readers.
Crowder's work The Cloth (p43) effectively captures his life's ambitious desire
Life!
Brilliant
As
A Butterfly.
Death?
Somber
As
A Moth
And
In Between
It's
Up To Me
To
Weave
A
Golden
Cloth.
The Blue Furoshiki is available from:
Robert Crowder and Co.
930 North Hancock Avenue
Los Angeles, California 90069
Email: MyLostJapan@aol.com (English and Japanese)
Price $15.00 US plus shipping