Bim Wood Project

Highland Hardware Welcomes Back Woodworking Legend Toshio Odate

Toshio Odate was born in Japan in 1930 and during the immediate post-war years served an apprenticeship as a maker of sliding doors. He went on to study art and design, and in 1958 was awarded a fellowship for the introduction of traditional Japanese woodworking in the United States, where he has remained.

Over the following four decades, Odate taught industrial design and sculpture at the university level, exhibited his own sculptures, and demonstrated Japanese woodworking techniques and attitudes at many workshops, classes and seminars throughout the U.S. and Europe. He has written articles for Fine Woodworking, American Woodworker, Woodwork and Woodshop News magazines, and is the author of Japanese Woodworking Tools: Their Tradition, Spirit and Use and Making Shoji. Odate has also been featured in several videos and televison productions, including Martha Stewart Living and the Woodwright's Shop. He currently resides in Woodbury, Connecticut.

Highland Hardware is delighted to welcome back woodworking legend Toshio Odate on May 20 & 21 to conduct a 2-day seminar, Japanese Woodworking Tools and Traditions (991395). Odate's Saturday class will cover the spectrum of Japanese tools for woodworking, and especially focus on recent developments in sharpening equipment and techniques in which he has been an active participant. On Sunday Odate will construct a shoji, or Japanese screen, using Japanese hand tools and techniques, right down to the shop-made rice glue fastening the rice paper to the wooden frame! This will be an informative and busy weekend with a superb teacher who has done as much as anyone to make Japanese tools accessible and useful for a generation of American woodworkers.

Odate’s visit includes a slideshow and lecture, Toshio Odate, the Sculptor (991394), at 7pm on Friday, May 19. The lecture and slideshow will introduce us to Odate's successful career as a sculptor and art professor, an aspect of his work the woodworking world hasn't seen. The lecture is included at no additional charge for those enrolled in his weekend class, but is open to anyone for $25.