Amber Waves of Grain: Tetsunori Kawana’s Bamboo Sculptures

For this post, we’re heading back to Denver again.  I just love it when you go to a favorite spot and there’s something new to capture your attention.  The Denver Botanic Gardens has once again come through for me.  For the past few years, they’ve commissioned site-specific art for the garden.  This year, in the show Kizuna: West meets East, Tetsunori Kawana, creates massive bamboo installations.

 

Of the pieces, my initial favorite was this rolling field of split bamboo entitled Passage: Culture Current, 2012.  In an instant “amber waves of grain” was etched into my brain.  How appropriate, I thought, as Katharine Bates penned her poem America the Beautifulnot far away in Colorado Springs.  If you look closely, you’ll also see “purple mountain’s majesty” in the background. Did Kawana know of the song when he envisioned this piece?

The motion of the upper part of the sculpture as the breeze came and went was hypnotizing.  I tried to capture the movement without a tripod, so the results might be more seasickness than hypnotizing.  I’ll let you be the judge.

 

 

The second part of the Passage piece–the jumbled mass of bamboo, which one could walk through, was not as compelling to me.  But while I was lying on the ground trying to photograph a grass’s wonderful curly flowering structures, I noticed the jumbled mass of grass from which they sprang.  Hmm.  Amazing how much they looked like the jumbled mass of bamboo on the hill above.  Was I seeing what inspired Kawana?

So why would an artist who works primarily in fiber be so attracted to these sculptures?  Are they sculptures or really huge pieces of cloth? Merriam Webster defines cloth as “a pliable material made usually by weaving, felting, or knitting natural or synthetic fibers and filaments.”  If you watch Scott Dressel-Martin’s video of the work in progress, you’ll see how cloth-like the piece is. Whichever label you choose to describe Kawana’s work, it’s certainly worth a visit, if not to the Denver Botanic Gardens then to Tetsunori Kawana’s website.