|
 I have never met
Howard
Clark in person, but in the many occasions where we have exchanged
written thoughts or spoken over the phone, I have found that this good man who
dislikes and is uncomfortable being treated as a god or an idol, is humble and concerned with his fellow
human being, and with very clear and open ideas about many issues
pertaining to the world, which will always remain in the utmost and sacred
privacy.
By now, meeting him would be just the corollary of a rather long
relationship by email or phone calls.
It may seem amazing for many that, in today’s globalized world, one can
get to know another person in a relatively profound way. But it also
happens that one has to be aware of the fact that experience can sometimes provide
for a more perceptive and intuitive view of one’s interlocutor, without
much guesswork.
He knows I don't idolize anyone, but rather relate myself further
with those who can accept an equal terms treatment.
Howard, whose father was a farmer, lives in a farm and has a special
predilection for the woods and, I am sure, for the silence that surrounds
him. As the inheritor of the Clark name, this man chose to work with
steel, which is undeniably connected with farming, that ancient dialogue
between man and mother earth.
I don’t know if Howard ever made farming tools, but if he did, he surely
is profoundly connected to one of the most ancient crafts since the iron age.
Indeed many tend to think on an immediate basis of iron or steel as connected
only to swords.
That is incorrect, but it surely provides an inner foundation to whoever
came from shaping farm tools into the craft of making swords.
I am, however, definitely inclined that Howard has worked
with agricultural tools one way or another.
I started my sword connection with Howard without even knowing of his
existence, when I ordered a 1086 blade from Bugei, around the year of
1997-98. The sword came after 18 months, and when it reached me, it was an amazement to the
eye.
 Later on Bugei would ask me to send them pictures of the sword as
I later learned that it
came out to be one of the most well achieved hamon that Howard produced at
that period. Although I had the tsuka changed into a brown tsuka-ito
at 12 inches, the picture on the right was taken for Bugei and it
appears on their leaflet.The hamon is indeed very unique, as can be seen
in the picture below. I would prefer to just call it a free hamon, in
the sense that the rebel that exists in this quiet voiced man manifests
itself in a non-conformist hamon that only obeys to his will, not
following school or style. And I must add, why would he have to follow a
style and not create his own?
 In this blade of mine I found that the hamon
stoped at the shinogi. It had probably been deliberately interrupted by
the intelligent eye of the polisher. I admired the interruption as it gave
a new boundary to it and re-established the rules of beauty and gave a sense
of balance to the entire blade. It had to be decided and done with
authority.
It was also much later that I found out that the blade had
been polished by Ted Tenold, a gentleman in his own right with whom I also
have had the pleasure of exchanging some emails for my spiritual
satisfaction.
I wonder if any of us will ever get to know another human being to the
full extent. I doubt it, for it is even quite impossible to know ourselves
well enough. But this impossibility should not prevent any appreciation of
talented human beings such as Howard Clark.
From my correspondence with him, I found in Howard a caring man that does
not like to talk about it. He rather acts in a supportive way, though
running away from any thanks, as if ashamed of being so kind. This is not a man who is comfortable with the
limelight. He has the wisdom to prefer the discreetness of his farm and his work,
living a simple yet enriching life with his wife Christine and their
children, helping out other folks and children whenever possible.
But all these are just prelimminary thoughts.
It is needless to say that the inner energy
that emanate from Howard Clark's blades that I have come to
touch, is a pure personal manifestation of the occult power that the
transmutation operated by the smith through the intermediation of the
opposites, the fire and the water, confers to them. Ii is however
important to state that each smith will confer to his works his own
energy by the way he works the steel. This is a craft rooted
in other crafts of which many smiths are not aware of, but the
transmutation does take place nonetheless.
If distance is something physical, the swords that I own are the
materialization of that link, and everyone of them has its own character.
Is Howard Clark better than other smiths? I don't think that this
question can ever take place. Each one is unique.
Each one celebrates the
ceremony of transmutation and the works that preceed or succeed to the
firing ot the blade in a very personal way.
Howard carried with him the burden of being the creator of the
L6 Bainite, something that perhaps metallurgy took hundreds and
hundreds of years to achieve, and that Howard has unleashed, like
the genie bottle that was opened.
For some reason that I cannot explain, I was the last purchaser of
his L6, right before he decided to produce and market it through
Bugei
I must take this opportunity to state something. It is a
breakthrough in terms of making an indestructible sword and I own one.
It may be sought after by many people. But it doesn't make them better
swordsmen. Many people I know use another type of sword and it is
the one who holds it that makes the sword powerful, not the other way
around.
 Now
I have returned to a second 1086 blade whose story I will not tell
much, except to say that Howard Clark has always been extremely
nice to me in a very detached way.His way, that reminds me of my
older brother, though Howard is younger than me. I wonder how many times he did the sword to be with the right sori I asked
for.
My guess is that he will not tell. Perhaps his mastery allowed him to
achieve the result with the first attempt, perhaps not. Maybe I'll never
know, but what makes me wonder about the blade that is not yet with me at
the time I write these lines, is that I have resorted to a rendition for
the mountings, which is already done. And I just wonder how close will my
anticipation view and Eric Litton's superb rendition work will be to the
blade.
Like all smiths I know, Howard has a behavioural pattern
that keeps him apparently away from what he has done. Like what is written
in the Dao De Qing: once the work is done, the superior man
detaches himself from it.
The way Howard adresses the hamon is coming again to
my mind. His non conformist attitude is that of an innovator. Indeed much
could be said towards the obvious fact that American smiths are not Japanese, and
though there is a mutual flow of knowledge, I sense that Howard Clark
is expressing himself in very personal ways, which does not mean
belittling the work of any other smiths, but rather analysing the fact that
Howard is defining himself as an American smith who makes Japanese
style blades with his own methods. And this article is about Howard
Clark, so my vision must be focused in his work.
This positioning, which is often not taken in a conscious way, will
be regarded in a historical perspective, perhaps some years from now as a step towards the affirmation of a new
way of making nihon-tô style blades.
|
