Douglas Brooks Presents - Ways of Learning: An Apprentice Boatbuilder in Japan

Douglas Brooks, a Vermont-based boatbuilder has been studying traditional Japanese boatbuilding for over twenty-five years. Since 1996 he has worked with nine boatbuilders, and he is the sole apprentice for seven of his teachers. Brooks has also worked on the Disney+ drama series Shōgun as the Japanese Boat Consultant. These men represent the last generation of craftspeople in Japan building wooden boats. Brooks’ research involves recording his teachers’ design secrets and techniques before they are lost. His book, Japanese Wooden Boatbuilding, is the first comprehensive study of the craft.

In this lecture Brooks will discuss the crucial role of the apprentice system nurturing Japanese crafts and the threat posed by the absence of a new generation of apprentices. He will describe the roles and responsibility of the apprentice faced with the unorthodox teaching styles of his masters, who in some cases is forced to steal his master’s secrets. He will describe his efforts to document and preserve this craft through articles, books and workshops, and he will discuss the future for this craft in a country at the forefront of modernization and change. His talk is a lesson in craft, learning, and boatbuilding, and includes his photographs of traditional boats from throughout Japan.

Sponsored by Oberlin College East Asian Studies program, Oberlin Shansi, the Baldwin Lectures Endowment, and the Ellen Johnson Fund for Contemporary Art. Photos courtesy of Douglas Brooks.