- Joined
- Jan 2, 2014
- Messages
- 297
Touzai (東西
can be literally translated East West and carries the idea of spanning across distance or covering and including everywhere. The seed that began this project was the question of what would result if a historical Japanese knife maker working at a time when exposure to the west was very limited was asked to create a western style knife based only on a description.
The resulting piece retains the lines and techniques that would have been familiar to the maker, but incorporates the most obvious elements of the foreign style which would have been transmitted in that description. The wide guard and hardwood handle would have been immediately recognizable to a western traveler, but the construction of the scabbard and other fittings are quite eastern. In viewing the final work, it seems that this particular fusion of eras and origins have unintentionally captured many of the influences normally associated with...dare I say it...the steampunk genre...and has quite a bit in common with the original bowie knife as described by rezin...
can be literally translated East West and carries the idea of spanning across distance or covering and including everywhere. The seed that began this project was the question of what would result if a historical Japanese knife maker working at a time when exposure to the west was very limited was asked to create a western style knife based only on a description.The resulting piece retains the lines and techniques that would have been familiar to the maker, but incorporates the most obvious elements of the foreign style which would have been transmitted in that description. The wide guard and hardwood handle would have been immediately recognizable to a western traveler, but the construction of the scabbard and other fittings are quite eastern. In viewing the final work, it seems that this particular fusion of eras and origins have unintentionally captured many of the influences normally associated with...dare I say it...the steampunk genre...and has quite a bit in common with the original bowie knife as described by rezin...
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