24/02/2023
Hi it’s Bella.
This is a post from Ford on Patreon which I am also sharing here as you lovely people might have some ideas.
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Aiming for Mukhansa
The picture here of a full Tsuba is a tsuba by the remarkable Kano Natsuo (1828 - 1898). I think it's one of the most sublime works ever made in this tradition. Its actually quite small, only 6.5cm tall, which is ridiculous given the art it packs in. It's held by the museum of Fine Art in Boston, USA.
I made a rather youthful attempt to capture something of its grace over 27 years ago and now it seems I'm drawn/pushed to return to the master's feet.
My teacher, Izumi Sensei, is a senior judge and trustee of the NBSK, the outfit in Japan that organises the annual sword-making competitions etc. and he, along with a few other generous supporters of my work, are strongly encouraging (read insisting) me to submit a piece in this years competition. This time it's apparently been decided that no original work is allowed but only utsushi, study pieces of masterworks, hence my return to Natsuo's Iris.
To date I've won 7 gold prizes (2022 being the most recent, with the dragonfly Tsuba below) and with eight comes promotion to Mukansa rank. That's essentially beyond contest judgement and below National Living Treasure status, so no small beer! If I am able to reach that far I'll be the first and only non-Japanese to have achieved this rank.
What Bella and I want to do it document the whole process, we're just about to film me drawing up the basic tsuba blank template in fact, and post snippets every couple of days here as I progress. When it's all done we'll edit the lot to make a proper film.
Now here's the issue we're wrestling with; you, our patrons here, are the ones funding this film making project, and after three years between us we've delivered a ton of material that is now freely available on YouTube. But it's essentially you 200 or so supporters who are keeping the lights on while YouTube viewers seem happy to simply consume everything for free. Such is the way of the internet 🙂
As I'm sure you've already worked out this project, the YouTube/patreon thing, is not in any way a commercially sensible enterprise. Each month's films takes a couple of days of both Bella and I in the studio filming followed by two to three days editing. So while we're busy making the films we're working at a significant loss compared to more sensible goldsmithing work.
Personally speaking I'm very torn. My health, as many of you will know, has not been great these past few years. I'm in a stable condition at the moment and if I'm careful my specialists suggest I'll be good for the foreseeable future. And that's part of my plan. But, and it's a BIG but (naughty puns being avoided here) I only have so much energy available each day and even pacing my work periods though the week is something I must be mindful of now. It's frustrating as all hell but its the reality I must work with now. 28% lung function, in UK winter weather, is no small challenge! and I won't bore you with the raft of other incidental issues that come with auto-immune diseases and interstitial lung disease.
You'll have noticed that I've not been able to make any actual films of me making stuff or create any project series for a while. These take a lot of time and are very physically demanding for me, but there are so many I want/need still to do.
I've thought long and hard about this and my future, what I need/want to do with my career, or even what my career is!
I feel as though I've done too much and worked at my craft for too long now not to try and document it and share my experience. I'm fortunate to have the support of Bella and her amazing 'behind the camera' skills in tackling this task but we need help, we can't do it all on our own.
We're not entirely sure ourselves how best to proceed, or even if we can, if we're absolutely honest, so we'd like to hear from you.
How do we grow the support base here, do we push on YouTube to garner
more support, and what would that look like? Do you have any other ideas that might allow us to expand and extend this project ?
Here is a link to Patreon
https://www.patreon.com/FordHallam?utm_campaign=creatorshare_fan
hugs to you all
Ford and Bella
