The Seattle Yosakoi Dance Society
During her year in Japan studying at Waseda, my friend, Elizabeth Snell, joined a Yosakoi dance team which went by the name "Tokyo Hanabi." Since she returned to the US, she has been demonstrating what she has learned, and we decided that it might be enjoyable to start a club for it here in Seattle. We just recently applied to become a registered student organization at the University of Washington. You can find our official website here.
One of the beautiful things about Yosakoi is that the moves are very easy to learn but difficult to perfect, making it a wonderful style for all levels of dancers.
American Indian Studies 253: Wood Carving
By far one of the most enjoyable classes I've taken at the University of Washington, with some of the most interesting people in it. Though it needs no advertisement to boost its popularity, many people have asked me how the class is conducted, and I thought it might be best to share exactly what I did in the class.
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The first thing we had to do was go to a forge and make the blade we would be using all quarter. This was one of the funnest parts of the class, even though we were freezing the entire time! |
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We hammered the end of a piece of steel into a mushroom shape, then smoothed out the sides. After that, we sanded it clean, tempered the steel, and added the bevel. |
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We took a section of a tree trunk and squared it off by using the blade we had made in what is called an "adze." Also, you can see my preliminary drawings for the ladle I was going to carve. |
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The blade is affixed to a handle which is actually just a branch joint from a tree. We used simple hose clamps to keep the blade in place. You can see the rainbow colors the blade took on during the tempering process. |
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After I sketched my drawing onto the block, I began to remove large chunks of wood with the adze. |
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You can see here that I cut the ladle designs I drew out, and continually resketched them on the block as I cut. The vertical and horizontal lines running on the block are the center lines I used to make sure I placed the drawing in the same place each time. |
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Often, it is easiest to cut against the grain of the wood with the adze. The large chunk missing here was from a light perpendicular strike. |
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This ladle belonged to my friend Michelle. You can see that she used C-Clamps and a block of wood against the table to keep her project from sliding while she was adzing it. |
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The second tool we used in our carving was the bent knife. The class used to make these themselves, but since we have a nearby provider, we just shell out the $43 and buy them. |
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One of the perks of this class was that everyone wanted to help with my homework! Here, my friend, Margot, is slimming down the top curve of the handle of my ladle. |
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Hsiao smoothing down the bottom of the ladle. |
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The last thing I did was seal the wood with raw linseed oil. I've noticed that I occasionally still need to treat it even a year later, but it hass kept the gorgeous color it had here. |
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The finished project. |