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John Clark, Woodworker:
Coming Full Circle
by Wayne Muromoto
Woodworker and aikido practitioner John Clark, with one of his handmade creations.
Woodworker and aikido practitioner John Clark still recalls the first time he saw his mentor, Jan Van Arsdale, work a piece of wood.
Van Arsdale (the author of Shoji, How to Design, Build and Install Japanese Screens, published by Kodansha International) used traditional Japanese carpentry tools to plane and chisel a piece of cedar. To hear Clark talk about that moment, it's as if the scent of the aromatic wood still lingers in his nostrils, like perfume lingering on silk kimono sleeves. "It (van Arsdale's tools) was like a knife cutting through butter. I was just taken by the whole thing," Clark recalls.
Serving an apprenticeship with van Arsdale, Clark felt he was coming full circle back to his original path. He had studied sculpture in art school, but for years he had made a good living in advertising, producing television commercials.
"Then, as you journey through life, you change," Clark says. "What I hope is that as I keep going through life, I'll keep changing."
From van Arsdale Clark learned to value wood as a material and traditional woodworking as a spiritual endeavor. He learned how to make shoji screens and "anything else that came along."
A handmade dojo shrine by John Clark. (All photos courtesy of John Clark and Zen Wood)
Two years ago Clark struck out on his own as Zen Wood, a one-person operation that specializes in dojo shrines, the little house-like Shinto shrines placed at the head of martial arts halls. The handmade shrines begin at $150, quite a bargain considering similar shrines can cost up to ten times as much or more in Japan. He also fills special orders for items such as tansu chests, lamps and boxes.
The business has so far broken even-quite an accomplishment, considering the long hours that Clark puts into the pieces that are very reasonably priced. But he's happy; working with hand tools in wood is part of a whole new life away from the glitter and glitz of commercial advertising. Clark feels that his work is part of his life, along with Zen practice and aikido. They all blend together, in one enveloping sphere.
Clark was introduced to aikido by friends. He was invited to tag along with them and observe their practice session. The dojo was nicely designed, with large windows that let bolts of sunlight stream in and play with the students as they practiced. The atmosphere, environment, and training took his breath away, like the first time he saw van Arsdale work in wood.
At present, he is one of the assistant instructors to Frank Doran (sixth dan), sensei at Aikido West. "Another person I consider a guiding light is Hiroshi Ikeda sensei, in Boulder, Colorado," Clark notes. "For me, he's a very inspiring teacher; he has very clean aikido, and an immaculate character."
Clark assembles each shrine by hand, from planing (left), to sawing (right) to finish assembling.
Clark also is a longtime student of Zen. He used to practice at the Empty Gate Zen Center in Berkeley, California, under Seung Sahn roshi. He currently studies at Mount Baldy Zen Center under Joshu Kyozan roshi.
The British-born Clark muses on the road that led him to where he is now. "One of the things I've been trying to do with my skills and my life in general is to combine different aspects of my life, to integrate those (aikido, Zen, woodworking) with my life so everything becomes one.
"Often we make analogies in aikido. Similes and metaphors of real life are used. So it's at its peak when it becomes real life. In aikido there is no final goal, there is just the practice. In Zen, there is nothing but breathing in, breathing out. I seem to find this overlapping sense of one part of my life blending into another. . ."
Clark constructs his dojo shrines out of select pieces of Western Red Cedar. He takes a thick plank and cuts it up into smaller pieces with power tools. The final cutting, chiseling and planing, however, are all done by hand. The finished shrines are then rubbed with a light coating of linseed and citrus oil.
"I lay it out by hand. All the joinery is done by hammer and chisels. I will use some glue and nails, but that's the way they (the traditional Japanese craftsmen) did it." Clark says. Although he uses power tools to rough-cut the wood, Clark won't mass produce his products, even though it would make more sense in terms of man-hours and production. He'll stick to hand tools and long hours.
"If you work this way, it takes a long time to do it. . . People are so used to buying things machine-made, and they could be stamped out very quickly. But there is a feeling that a handmade thing has some soul in it. It's hard to put into words, but there is definitely an element of spirit or soul that a machine can't do. . ."
Clark, when pressed, can't put a finger on why he originally started on his road of Zen-aikido-traditional woodworking. But, he muses, it might have to do with his being raised in England. "Both countries have a strong historical tradition. . . When I started to see Japanese carpentry and design, it struck me as being quite profound in its simplicity. Some of its simplicity comes from function, but if you make it simple in an arbitrary way, it doesn't work."
If Clark is trying to pursue a way of livelihood and lifestyle, he is also, inherently, following a way of thinking. He is trying to blend the gentle and human values of traditional craftsmanship in a modern era of Federal Express packages and fax machines.
"I'm trying to create a sort of craft cottage industry you might have in a village situation. In a village it's quite easy to trade off of each other. I'm trying to keep that feeling, but over longer distances."
Anyone interested in ordering a dojo shrine may write to: John Clark, Zen Wood, 125 Oak Court, Menlo Park, CA 94025, or call: (415) 323-7820.
