Preserving the Art of Japanese Boatbuilding Crafts - talking with Douglas Brooks

<p>Douglas Brooks has spent his career as an apprentice, researcher, and teacher of traditional Japanese wooden boats. Doug's home base is in Vermont, USA, but he has been to Japan over 25 times and has been to all 47 prefectures of Japan to research, build and even teach at various Japanese boatmaking projects. #japan #boatbuilding #woodenboats #craft #japaneseculture </p><p>We catch up with Doug here while he is finishing a set of boats in Kagawa, Japan this month- so this is a fantastic chance to catch up with him in the same time zone and talk about his apprenticeships, book, work, passion, and insights for the traditional art of Japanese boatbuilding.</p><p>Douglas Brooks Links:</p><p><a href="https://linktr.ee/douglasbrooks" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://linktr.ee/douglasbrooks</a></p><p>From his website: Douglas has many years of experience training with masters of traditional Japanese boatbuilding, building boats himself, running workshops and seminars for students and is the author of the book "Japanese Wooden Boatbuilding". About the book: "This is the story of my apprenticeships with Japanese masters to build five unique and endangered traditional boats. It is part ethnography, part instruction, and part my personal reflections on preserving a craft tradition on the brink of extinction. Over the course of 17 trips to Japan, I have travelled over 30,000 miles to seek out and interview Japan’s elderly master boat builders; I built boats with five of them, all in their seventies and eighties, between 1996 and 2010. For most of them, I was their sole and last apprentice." Order a signed copy of the book from Douglas Brooks website: <a href="http://www.douglasbrooksboatbuilding.com/japanese_wooden_boatbuilding.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">http://www.douglasbrooksboatbuilding.com/japanese_wooden_boatbuilding.html</a></p><p>Please support Joy's work producing &amp; hosting the Seek Sustainable Japan talkshow-podcast</p><p>Joy (JJ) is originally from Hawaii and long-time