From the October 2021 issue of "Casa Brutus"
From stylists to potters, Hokkaido's wood carving bears are addicted to "knowing things". At first glance, its abstract appearance is just a lump of wood, but it certainly feels like a bear.
Wood carving bears from Hokkaido are popular among high-sensitivity people !? It's no wonder you're surprised to hear that. The popular one is a little different from the black, shiny, salmon-bearing guy that everyone thinks of. It was about 100 years ago that bear sculptures as souvenirs began to be carved in Hokkaido. Since the Meiji era, many people from the former Owari clan have settled in the present-day Yakumo town in southern Hokkaido. In the Taisho era, the head of the Owari-Tokugawa family, Yoshichika Tokugawa, who visited this area, witnessed the poor and less enjoyable lives of the farmers and tried to improve them. It was the wood carving bear of Peasant Art (farmer art) that I met in Switzerland that I visited on my old marriage trip. Yakumo's "bear carving" started as an industry to earn cash income in the off-season winter, and also as a cultural pleasure for farmers. Its appearance is a little different from the appearance of that bear that everyone currently imagines. He wasn't holding a salmon, and he wasn't shiny and black. Among the many bear carvings of Yakumo, the most striking is the "abstract bear" that has developed independently in this area. Due to its overwhelming presence, many people are now paying attention to it as an art that goes beyond souvenirs. Koichi Uchida, a ceramist, is one of them. This autumn, at the
