Page 33 - BSAM 2016 Q4

Several years ago, we visited a stone carver and his shop located on the Ibi River, but that visit was brief and our limited time did not permit us to document the extent of the stone carving at this location. Over several
intervening years, we became personally acquainted with each of the stone vendors at the Kokufu-ten and Taikan-ten exhibitions. We learned that some of these dealers were also stone carvers, but one of them— Sakurai Toshio—was considered to be the last of the major Japanese stone carvers making suiseki in Japan. We knew that many of the stones he sells have been partially or totally made, but we did not know how he made them. Sakurai invited us to visit his home and his shop in Yaizu in central Shizuoka Prefecture. Our rst visit with him was on November 10, 2015 and then we spent two more days with him in his home and immediate area in March 22nd and 23rd, 2016.
Our two-hour ride by bullet train (Shinkanshen) southwest from Tokyo to Yaizu gave us time to review our questions for Sakurai. Sakurai met us at the Yaizu train station and took us directly to his shop. On both visits, we sat and talked in his stone showroom before touring his facility. We soon learned that he had been buying, enhancing and selling stones for just over forty years, and that he was friends with many stones deal- ers in Shizuoaka and nearby Giu Prefectures and in Tokyo. Now in his early 80s, he is considering closing his business at the end of this year due to health issues. His shop area, large by Japanese standards, consists of two parallel buildings and extensive open-air bench
systems between and around the two buildings and Top; The rst major or rough
along the rear of his property, a driveway and parking area. It is large enough for several cars to park inside the property. e extensive outdoor bench system is for cultivated stones or yoseki, the Japanese practice of cultivating stones outdoors.
Sakurai was born in 1935 in the Ochiai family that ran a small family sake brewery. Toshio married into the Sakurai family and assumed the Sakurai family name, a tradition in Japan when a family only has daughters. Toshio rst became interested in stones from the Yoshima River as a young adult around the time his father died. He started working as a taxi driv- er in the 1950s since he had his own car. Whenever he drove to nearby Yoshima, he would purchase several boxes of attractive Yoshima stones from farmers and then take them to Tokyo to sell to Mr. Kasahara, owner of Sansui-en, a nice stone shop in the Nerima region. Sakurai was able to sell them for ten times what he paid. He was aware that buying and selling was stones were a good business.
ese transactions occurred at the beginning of Japan’s biggest boom in suiseki appreciation. Japan was occupied by American military responsible for the reconstruction of Japan was administered by them until the treaty of San Francisco in 1951 when Japan was turned back over to Japanese leaders. is was followed by a period of steady growth and prosperity. A plethora of new books were published for suiseki hobbyists throughout the 1960s and 1970s, and suiseki’s appeal expanded from the pre-war
cuts have been made by Sakurai to form a single peak mountain stone. These rst cuts (lighter colored areas) were made with his large circular saw. Later cuts, to make the mountain stone more realistic, will be made with the power circular grinding tools and the hand-held pneumatic chisel. After the nal shaping has been completed, it may be subjected to sandblasting
to minimize the smooth cut surfaces and then acid washed for a short time to darken the stone. Sakurai can make an attractive landscape stone in four to six hours.
Facing page; Two examples of stones in the process of being carved.
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