Credit and thanks where it's due.

I've been very remiss. Those of you who know my work and some of the story of how I've made my journey into the world of Classical Japanese metalwork may have heard me mention my first study trip to Japan having been as a Winston Churchill Travelling Fellow. I've not really elaborated on this and I think it's time I did because I owe that foundation a great deal. My own fellowship was awarded in the autumn of 1993 and allowed me to spend 10 weeks in Japan and to get my foot in the door, so to speak. You can learn more about the WCMT from their website here and this is quote, taken from that site, explains how it came about.

The Winston Churchill Memorial Trust was established when Sir Winston Churchill died in 1965. Thousands of people, out of respect for the man and in gratitude for his inspired leadership, gave generously so that a living memorial to the great man could benefit future generations of British people.

Every year around 100 fellowships are awarded to individuals in various categories to allow them to travel anywhere in the world to further their studies, research or simply to experience a different culture's approaches that are relevant to their own work. The idea being that these fellows would then share the fruits of their travels with their own working community.

 I was encouraged by a specialist dealer in Japanese sword fittings (tosogu), Mr Graham Gemmell, to apply for a fellowship so that I could finally get to the source of this tradition that had so captivated my attention. I had actually met Graham 2 years earlier at the opening of an exhibition he'd curated and which is now reasonably well know in collector circles from the excellent book that accompanied it, Tosogu: Treasure of the Samurai 

In fact it was Graham who first planted the crazy notion of being a full time artist in this field in my head. He's got a lot to answer for really ;-) It was though our many and lengthy conversations that I began to realise that accurate information, at least in the West, about the technical aspects of tosogu manufacture was essentially non-existent. In time I was to discover that the situation wasn't all that better in Japan but I'll write about that another time.

 The initial application that was required by the Trust was a simple, one paragraph, explanation of what you wanted to do, why and what the outcome might be. Apparently my desire to go to Japan and seek out a real Sensei and to study first hand with practising artists was seen to be a good idea. I was living in Penzance, in Cornwall, at the time, 6 hours by train from London. I was duly informed (by post...no internet back then) that I'd earned a 15 minute interview, return train ticket included.

 I arrived on the appointed day, having set off from Penzance at some ungodly hour to catch the earliest train, with 5 minutes to spare. A quick freshen up in the bathroom and I was briskly escorted in to the interview room by Sir Richard Vickers. A slightly built, retired, military man who reminded me of my grandfather,  also a retired military man. I say, interview room, it was more of a ball room really. At least it felt like that to me.

 I was seated in front of a table of 3 interviewers, like a more refined version of Pop Idols, while Sir Richard seated himself slightly behind and to my right. A thoughtful touch, I felt, in that his presence was very reassuring. The questions I was asked were very thoughtful, probing and insightful and allowed me to express my enthusiasm for my project and to convince the trustees that I would make good use of the opportunity were it offered to me.

 One answer, to a question I imagine all candidates were asked, was probably very different from most and may have helped my cause a little bit.
 I was asked what the memory of Churchill might mean to me personally. Of course, the obvious reaction to that name is to reflect on his leadership through those terrible years of World War II and every British person would have older relatives who endured those times. My own family being no exception. I grew up in the Veld of the West Coast of South Africa though, surrounded, beleaguered one might suggest ;-), by young Boer boys who still harboured a great deal of hatred for the "rooinek".

 I was one of only 3 English speaking boys at the Vredenburg town school, bizarrely, we all had surnames beginning with H. Hansen, Hoskins and Hallam. There was another English family called Hutchinson but they were all girls.

 Being the new boy in town and quite a lot smaller than the local farm lads, all prospective Springbok rugby players and built like the proverbial brick outhouse, I was seen as fair game. Being very blond and well spoken didn't improve my chances of survival much either. It was in an attempt to arm me, at least psychologically, that my father told me the story of how the young Winston Churchill, a war correspondent in the Anglo Boer War escaped imprisonment by the Boers and evaded capture while travelling over 300 miles to safety. The image of this resourceful Englishman outwitting he Afrikaners was evidently enough to bolster my courage in the face of a number of unpleasant "incidents"

My "trials" came to an abrupt end when one of the bigger lads tried to push me over so that they could all have a game of footie with me. Somehow I managed to grab his fingers as he reached out for me and I had him on his knees bagging for mercy before I had time to think. I admit that even now I can remember thinking I'd grabbed a tiger by the tail and that once I let go I'd be in even more trouble. To this day I don't quite know what happened next but somehow the collective anger that had been directed at me melted away and was replaced with a sort of grudging respect. The tension dissolved, my "captive" seemed resigned and so I just stepped back and let him go.

 I never had any problems with any of the farm boys after that. I later mastered their native tongue and even managed to get myself picked for the school rugby team. No-one thought to ask if I knew the rules though....they just appreciated my willingness to get stuck in. Needless to say, I was never noticed by Springbok talent scouts.

 I didn't relate the details of this particular story in my interview but I did explain how, as an English boy growing up in the veld, the Young Winnie had been a great inspiration. I think they rather liked that, especially Lady Mary Soames who is Churchill's youngest daughter.

The Winston Churchill Memorial Trust placed a great deal of faith in me when they awarded me my travelling fellowship. I hope I've delivered on my promise and I remain grateful to the memory of a great Englishman.

Bags of hush all round, please.

When I woke this morning I had a strong feeling that I simply wanted to not speak today....or at least to speak when only absolutely necessary and then very quietly. I spend so much time intensely focussed on my work, in solitude and quiet that this morning's urge seemed a little surprising. What I was aware of was a feeling of fatigue despite having had a good nights rest. I have begun, of late, to suspect that noise does actually stress me and and leave me feeling very drained. I also recognise that in this agitated state my responses and reactions to events, ideas and people is sometimes strained and somehow not really my own. As an artist this is of significant interest to me hence my intuition that I need some extra quiet.

People sometimes ask what music I listen to when I work. This always amuses me because when I'm concentrating on what I do I can't hear any music. I'm also aware, intellectually speaking, that any music playing in the studio will be having some influence on my body. To be unaware of something like this seems, to me, perhaps to be a little bit careless so I tend not to have music playing, especially when doing very delicate or sensitive work.

When I checked my YouTube account this morning I was bemused to find a new upload from National Geographic that seemed to reaffirm the thoughts I'd woken to. This is an inspiring mediation from a remarkable man, John "Planetwalker" Francis.

The Ragged Edge of Silence



I've played the guitar for almost as long as I've worked with metal but only in the last 2 years have I finally submitted myself to the real discipline of studying classical guitar. I'm extremely fortunate to have as my mentor and guide a very accomplished and wise maestro with the wonderful name of Ulliano Marchio. Ulliano is remarkably patient with me and when we get together of the occasional 45 minute lesson, which takes 2 hours as we talk a lot, I invariable leave a little more attentive to my own thoughts and to my own slow but steady progress. Ulliano allows me to relax into my own pace and understanding of what I'm doing. He's gently led me to a point where I hear the silence between the notes, those elemental pauses that make the music. When I practice, now, I'm acutely aware of the noise the notes produce, the timbre, the resonance and clarity...and the need to allow each of these notes to ring true. I'm an awfully long way off achieving what I'm speaking of but I've had a glimpse of that far away land and if I keep mindfully to the path I've been set on I may eventually reach the borderlands before my time is up.

Just last week someone expressed surprise, almost outrage, that I didn't use electric belt sanders and other machines in my studio so that I could be more efficient. I think all that noise would probably make my journey almost impossible. I don't think I could find my path though that jungle of sound...it's far too ephemeral.

Shudan - a conversation by hand

Shudan refers to the intimate communion between the craftsman's hands and his materials.

This short (2 minute) film was edited out of a much longer film Brad Schaffer and I are working on at present. I put this one together as an entry in the The Power of Making exhibition that's being held at the Victoria and Albert Museum, in London, over the following few months.


In it I demonstrate Yuwake, a traditional hot water casting procedure. The subsequent forging, yama-oroshi or "pounding down the mountain", of the water cast button transforms it into a tsuba. A guard for a Japanese sword.


I first came across the term, Shudan, on the website of a manufacturer of fine Igo equipment. 


This is what they had to say; 

In old days, clamshell was shaped one by one using this handmade traditional tool and craftsman finished it as truly artistic Go stone. Go was called "Shudan", which literally means 'hand conversation'. Craftsman and stone interact with each other from the beginning of manufacturing process.

In old days, clamshell was shaped one by one using this handmade traditional tool and craftsman finished it as truly artistic Go stone. Go was called "Shudan", which literally means 'hand conversation'. Craftsman and stone interact with each other from the beginning of manufacturing process.

A load of old balls or music to your ears?

No, not CGI. It is apparently real as is the sound. It's funny how when confronted by something as time consuming as this there's an immediate tendency to finds ways to minimise it's effect. There seems to be a discussion in the blogosphere about whether the sound is real etc. If any people would go to this sort of trouble and devote so much time to getting something just right it would be the Japanese.

Just thinking further about many of the responses to the Docomo cellphone ad (the wooden ball running down the track in the woods). I think it's a sad reflection of our present cynicism with creative media that so much of the discussion is about how the whole thing could be effectively faked.

From suggestions that the sound was added in, that the wooden track is actually only one short bit but reshot from different angles to the whole thing being CGI. Perhaps this level of devotion is threatening. Perhaps we feel the need to dismiss amazing efforts like this because they remind us what we might achieve ourselves....if we just put in the effort and devotion too.

I don't care if this isn't entirely "real"...I want to keep it in my imagination as an ideal, and one I want to keep living by.

More about the ad  here

Cornel Schneider - devoted to realism.

This remarkable piece of carving is the latest work by the Swiss carver, Cornel Schneider. His utter devotion to realism never fails to astonish me. This grumpy toad on a lotus leaf is actually carved from a single piece of box wood and features acrylic "droplets of water". As life-like as the toad is, and he really does seem to be a grumpy fellow...the toad not Cornel ;-), I'm particularly drawn to the understated delicacy of the leaf and those beads of  water. Lovely!

If you'd like to see a few more images of this piece you'll find some on the Iron Brush forum, here.

You can also see more of Cornel's work on his own website, here;  http://www.cornelschneider.ch/

Hisashiburi!...it's been a while, ne?

Waking... Jasmine!

scents the still cool air.

I hear Spring.

I keep meaning to get back to writing blog entries but as is all to often the case life gets in the way of well meaning plans. Knowing me, I just need to get back into the rhythm of writing about the things that keep me awake late at night or that are being mulled over in the studio and there'll be no stopping my running commentary. To be honest, of late, there have been a number of issues I've really wanted to say quite a bit about but I really didn't want to get involved in protracted on-line "debates". I've decided, instead, to use this platform to have my say and if you get something from my opinions, views and observations that's just fine by me....if you care to disagree, start your own blog and I'll read what you think. ;-) ....I promise.

This is a tsuba I've recently finished, I'm quite chuffed with it. I've been working towards a way of revealing the actual structure of the metal and allowing this feature to appear as part of the patina. I've also been developing a more variegated and subtle tonal range in the actual patina colours I create on copper. I'm very satisfied with the way this one's worked out and the fine gold inlay, which stands ever so slightly proud of the surface and so catches the light beautifully, seems to to compliment the more organic qualities of the piece nicely, methinks.

If you're interested you can see some more images here, on the Iron Brush forum.

Someone asked if by "hearing spring" (in my haiku at top) I was referring to birds. I might have been....but in the Japanese incense game the act of smelling and identifying the scents is referred to as listening. 

Utsushi - the search for Katsuhira's tiger.

Some of you have already seen this short documentary film but I've just uploaded a High Definition version with Japanese subtitles onto YouTube.

You'll find details about the film maker and links to alternative text translations of the audio in the description below the film screen.

You'll find part one here.
and part 2 here.

You'll see the default quality setting on the play bar is usually 360p (on the right just below the screen). The film can be viewed in higher quality (up to 1080 High Definition ) by selecting a higher resolution setting. At the higher settings you can watch it in an expanded view to fill the screen.



There are some high res photographs, like the one shown above, posted here in my Picasa gallery. You'll also find a cover design for the dvd should you want to use it.

Please feel free to download the files for your own use. You'll need to use RealPlayer software to do this. It's available for free here.


If you're interested you can read more about the project the film follows and how it came about here in a post I wrote last June.
I hope you enjoy it.

best regards,

Ford Hallam

The Art Instinct

I'm reading a fascinating book at the moment. Denis Dutton's "The Art Instinct" explores our aesthetic responses and creative acts from an evolutionary point of view.

I find his arguments very persuasive and it does in fact seem quite probable that there is very little that is really inexplicable in the way we respond to things like The Arts and the development of aesthetic preferences.

This review, by Hannah Rose Burgess, of the book may give some idea of it's main thesis and some of the possible objections.

This is a quote from the review that I particularly appreciated.

"Perhaps the best feature of The Art Instinct is the significant advances that it makes in discrediting the notion that art is culturally relative. Some very sharp scholarship adopts this view, but many of its forms can either be false or easily collapse into tautology. The Art Instinct takes a decisive stand against them. The chapter entitled ‘But They Don’t
Have Our Concept of Art’ is, in part, an attack on this. The author applies vigorous logic to reveal the incoherence of forms of this view."

Ko-Umetada sukashi tsuba

I found this Ko-Umetada tsuba at Colin Griffiths Fine Art this morning.



The most well known name in this school is Umetada Myoju (Momoyama Period, 1573 to 1603) but it's generally believed that the name Myoju was actually used by a group tsuba-shi in the earlier Muromachi period (1333 to 1573). Almost nothing concrete is known about the origins of these workers and even the connection to the later, Umatada Myoju school is tentative. Those examples that are identified as belonging to this earlier group are generally unsigned and are called Ko-Umetada.

Tsuba associated with the Umetada group that date from after the time of Umetada Myoju are generally very distinctive. Their inlay designs are reminiscent of the exuberant Kōrin school
and unlike earlier Umetada works are most commonly in soft metals, typically shinchu (a type of Japanese, low zinc brass) and feature painterly inlay in shakudo and other alloys. You can see some of these types here.

The Umetada did produce iron guards after the time of Myoju but their character is generally influenced by the more "plastic" qualities their non-ferrous works exhibit.

The example that caught me eye this morning is quite unlike these later Umetada works I feel.

There is a suggestion of Shoami design sensibility here which is to be expected, apparently, according to Sasano. He also tells us these earlier Umetada works, Ko-Umetada, while reminiscent of Ko-Shoami are more refined. I assume he means in terms of the actual material itself and the workmanship.

The first thing that strikes me about this piece is the openwork design itself. The spacings and volumes are perfectly conceived and the rhythm of curves that are created give the piece a lively elegance. I particularly like the way the lines run into the seppa-dai at the top and bottom and onto the edges of those peculiar hitsu-ana shapes.

The piecing and refinement of those cut outs is skilfully executed. The nakago ana seems to me to be practically unaltered and is a very pleasing shape that suggests to a maker who was extremely conscious of even the most seemingly minor aspects of his work. The rough texture of the kuchi-beni, for me, provides a satisfying contrast to the surface of the steel.

The outer skin of the steel exhibits quite a fine texture and indicates to me a material that has been thoroughly forged to produce a fairly homogeneous steel but being hand made, so to speak, it retains a beautiful subtlety that is impossible to develop in modern mass produced steels. This texture is not the sort that would be applied by means of hammering or a finely textured punch. Rather, the steel would have been finished fairly finely and then, by means of various heating and oxidising processes, the outer layer of material is very gently oxidised away to reveal the more natural skin underneath. This sort of subtle finishing reveals the inner structure of the steel.

The image is a bit over exposed so the true colour is impossible to gauge but I don't see any obvious damage so I would be reasonably confidant that the surface patina is in good condition. Certainly, the overall condition of the piece strongly supports my instinct. We don't have images of the rim but there are at least 2 place near the edge where I discern what appear to be hints of fine linear tekkotsu and some indications of layers in the material so I would expect to see some more signs of the forging process evident in the mimi too.

Genuine Ko-Umetada tsuba are not at all very common and this example is quite large by comparison to those I've seen. Whether a shinsa panel would agree that this is in fact Ko-Umetada remains to be seen but as a good example of a real samurai tsuba this is a pretty fine example and at this price ($500) you really can't go wrong. That it has, in my opinion, a reasonable chance of being papered as being at least Hozon, maybe even higher given it's size, condition and elegance, to Ko-Umatada makes it an extremely tempting offering.

Shinchu Dragonfly Tsuba

If you're familiar with my recent work you may have noticed a certain fondness for dragonflies. I've been trying out a variety of approaches in terms of how best to capture the feeling of these intriguing little insects. I've posted a series of images of my dragonfly incarnations here, if you'd care to see their evolution. I was initially captivated by the wings, as I'm sure most people are, but the more I study them the more I've come to appreciate the whole structure. They really are amazingly sculptural, to my eyes at least.

This is my latest tsuba. It was completed earlier this year as my entry in the Nihonto Bunka Shinko Kyokai competition for newly made swords, polishing and associated arts. All entries that are deemed of sufficient quality to be accepted into the competition receive the designation of nyusen. This tsuba of mine was apparently well received, being admitted as nyusen and in addition it earned me an award called Gijustsu Shorei Sho 技術奨励作. It translates as "Technique Encouragement Award". Apparently this is roughly equivalent to the designation Doryokusho in the NBTHK shinsaku competitions.


The basic plate is of a brass type alloy I made up based on analysis' of various old examples. It's called shinchu in Japanese. The dragonfly is of shibuichi, ao-kin (green gold), shakudo, silver and the eyes in mother of pearl.

If you like to see some more images of this tsuba you will find some here, in my picasa gallery.