Iris Tanaka has been binding books in Kyoto for thirty-one years. She trained for nine of those under a single teacher, who in turn had trained for fourteen under his. We met at her bench on a wet afternoon in early November. The conversation below has been condensed.
You started later than most of your peers. What was the apprenticeship like in the first year?
Slow. Mostly cleaning. I wiped down tools, organized paper, watched. I did not touch a book for six months. By the time I did, I had already, without realizing it, learned how to hold one.
That sounds maddening.
It was. I did not understand the shape of it at the time. I thought I was being kept from the work. Now I think the watching was the work. By the time I made my first binding, I had already corrected myself in my head a hundred times.
On materials
Has anything changed in the materials you use?
The paper is harder to find. Two of the four mills I trained on no longer exist. The thread is the same. Glue is much improved. Cloth depends on the season. I have learned to like substitution. I do not get attached.
Do you mourn what is gone?
Sometimes. The papers were extraordinary. But the work is the work. You bind what you have.
On teaching
Are you taking apprentices yourself now?
Two. One has been with me four years. The other is new — eight months. He still cleans more than he binds. He does not yet understand why.
Will you tell him?
No. He will figure it out, or he will leave. Both are honest outcomes.
What gets lost
What about this work do you think will be gone in a generation?
The patience. The materials, eventually, are replaceable. The technique can be written down. What is hard to pass on is the willingness to spend nine years learning before you make anything you would put your name on. I do not know how to give that to a younger person except by making them stand next to me until they figure it out.
Most of what I do well, I cannot explain. I can only show you.
We sat in silence for a few minutes after that. She finished the spine she had been working on. I drank cold tea and watched her hands.