Kite Lines - Vol.3 No. 1 - KiteLife

Stupendous but limber kite made and carried in Seattle by a team from Shirone, Japan, led by Kazuo Tamura ; and a group of "smaller" kites .By Louise CrowleyWhen I was - a child, aged Indian womensat cross-legged on the sidewalk beside theBon Marche, each surrounded by a jumbleof handwoven cedar-bark baskets for saleto the passersby-and quite sensibly, too,because the Bon was the busiest place inSeattle . It still is . A statelier building now,and further uptown, the Bon has neverlost its knack of attuning with almost uncannyprecision to the changing pulse ofthis city . So it would be the Bon thatwould come up with such a presentationas The Orient Expressed .I heard of it through a phone call froma fellow kiter : the Bon was preparing abig promotion with an oriental motif, andas part of it, was going to bring a wholekite team from Japan to make kites-evena giant o'dako, no less-right inside thestore . The Washington Kitefliers Associationhad been asked to help .A week later, the Bon had been transformed. Brightly painted torii entrances,colorful eight-story banners and windowdisplays carried the theme all around theblock . Inside, the main-floor escalatorhad been converted, spectacularly, intothe gaping mouth of a huge Chinese dragon,and topping a decor replete with bamboo,chrysanthemums and oriental artwork, aflock of six life-size crane kites by ShuheiGoto hung from the ceiling in flightformation . The giant o'dako, alreadyassembled and painted with a traditionalkabuki character, covered a 16x23-footsection of the east wall .And everywhere there was activity . Thesound of drums drew me to a stage, wherea team from Kobe was putting on amartial-arts display . I found other craftspeople,artists and performers demonstratingtheir skills on every floor . Halfway upto the kitemakers on the topmost floor, Irecognized Tsutomu Hiroi polishing anangular aluminum abstraction, one of thelargest of a prominently displayed groupof his earthbound sculptures . On anotherfloor I got sidetracked by fragrant orientalcooking demonstrations . Clearly, TheOrient Expressed was a hit .For local kite enthusiasts, of course, itall revolved around Hiroi and the visitingmembers of the Shirone Kite Team . Itwas a visit they and Dave Checkley of theWKA had long hoped for . Dave had metKazuo Tamura of the Shirone team inTokyo a year and a half before, andTamura had told him then that if hecould get a sponsor for a trip to theUnited States, he and other membersof his team would bring their materials,make kites here and leave the finishedcreations when they returned . When theBon began planning for The Orient Expressed,Dave saw his chance and securedits sponsorship for Hiroi, Tamura and fiveother team members . Four more Shironekiters and three Japan Kite Associationmembers from Tokyo and Kyoto joinedthem for the Sunday activities on a tourarranged by the Japan Travel Bureau .Hiroi and Kenichi Koshiba were the onlyEnglish-speaking members of the team,but Dan Kurahashi, a JKA member fromVancouver, B .C ., Canada, was on hand formost of their stay to help interpret .Besides the giant o'dako, the teammade several 10- to 18-foot hexagonalkites and dozens of smaller ones, includingsome whimsical bird and insect kites,during its week of in-store demonstrations .The men's skill in painting them was adelight to watch : they sketched thedesigns-so exotic to us, so obviouslyfamiliar to them-with swift, sure brushstrokesin light gray ink and, keepingbrushes half-dried with quick strokes onscraps of absorbent paper, added colorand shading with the same unhesitatingdeftness . On the smaller kites, a pictureseemed to develop as magically as a