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I t has to start somewhere, and for Dhavall Gandhi, Artistic Director of KANDOBLANC, it was the idea of Dragon. In his visits to Japan and the Zen temples of Kyoto, there was Dragon. On screens, on ceilings, on the blade of a sword. Coiling, emerging from clouds. How could Dragon be brought into his latest creation?
KANDOBLANC’s [Kandō: the Japanese concept of quiet beauty that moves the soul, Blanc/white: an uncluttered space that allows infinite possibilities] purpose is threefold: to promote and preserve the skills of traditional crafts which are in danger of disappearing, and doing so in ways which make them relevant in the contemporary world. Through its work, KANDOBLANC can support these fragile crafts and tell their deeper stories.
What is the difference between art and craft? A work of art is created by one person’s imagination. It is a subjective, aesthetic response to an emotion which in turn provokes an emotional response. Art is not functional. Craft, on the other hand, is.
A craft object is the result of skills and techniques which have been passed down through generations. It has a primary use. Art is a one-off, craft is replicable. These two sides of the creative world are not mutually exclusive, however. Both demonstrate the mastery of a skill. Crafts can be both utilitarian and works of art. Each discipline contributes to the preservation of cultures and traditions. They coexist, bleed into each other.
“Craft is good work proceeding from the whole man, heart and head in proper balance … fed through the senses … by intuition and emotion, responding to innate behests of material,” wrote Bernard Leach, the father of British studio pottery. Around the world, these generations-old techniques are disappearing and with them go important elements of culture. Crafts are not simply well-made, pleasing utilitarian objects, but tangible cultural assets, a celebration of people, place and materials.
KANDOBLANC explores ways in which whisky can be linked to this world of traditional craft. It isn’t an independent bottler, but a “house” based around the safeguarding these traditions and skills. Whisky-making, after all, is a craft. It is replicable and functional, but one-off bottlings, experiments, the moving of the template onwards is, at its heart, an artistic response to the craft. This fusion has led to distillers working in collaboration with artists, sculptors, designers, chefs, asking them to respond to the spirit.
Here, the starting point was Dragon. In Buddhism and Taoism, Dragon is not a fearsome beast. Rather it is benevolent, a symbol of fertility, the elements (water in particular) and cosmic balance. Protector of nature, Dragon links the human and divine realms.
A whisky which encapsulated these qualities therefore had to be gentle, elegant, unencumbered by wood. It should express its maturity in layers. It should float sinuously, be enigmatic, slow. Smoke would represent the clouds through which Dragon passes – drifting, semi-transparent. Not Islay then, but Speyside. The relaxed maturation given over 60 years of a refill cask.
The distillery is not named, deliberately. Neither are the craftspeople. KANDOBLANC itself is not even mentioned. Naming would be distraction from the totality of the work, it would establish a hierarchy, the discussion would inevitably focus on the distillery, not the totality.
This is the idea which drives KANDOBLANC’s three pillars: creative expression, allowing ideas to flow, unconstrained, on both sides - the craft and the art working together. ‘Dragon In Clouds’ is about the intermingling of art and crafts, all on an equal footing, interdependent.
The whisky is held within a 1.5 litre bottle crafted by the VENINI studio in Murano which combines two highly skilled techniques: Battuto, where the surface of the glass is ground to create irregular overlapping patterns and Inciso, where fine thin lines are etched on the surface. It is extremely rare to have both combined in a single piece, an artistic triumph of the glassmaker’s craft. The bottle is in fact two bottles, one blown inside the other. The hand and breath of the maker is apparent.
Japan may be the wellspring for KANDOBLANC but even there, a country where crafts exist within a complex aesthetic framework, they are under threat.
Here, the upper contours of the vessel are where Japanese crafts are featured. A base of archival grade ceramic was slowly coated over many months with layers of Urushi lacquer made from the sap of the urushi tree (Rhus vernacifera) which is aged, then tinted. After the lacquer was polished, it was decorated by one of the last masters of the Togidashi maki-e technique, and a member of the Kanazawa Co-operative which is trying to preserve this dying art.
Using gold powder, the craftsman painstakingly drew Dragon In Clouds freehand before another two layers of lacquer were applied. Once dried, the surface was burnished in specific places to create the effect of clouds and the emerging Dragon before final layers of lacquer were applied and polished. The bottle is then tied with a gold silk thread coloured with a natural dye made from a tree fungus and woven by one of the last traditional silk kimono weavers.
In Dhavall’s words, it is all “Superhuman Craftsmanship.” All are linked by Dragon and its symbolising of adaptability, fluidity, and life force. The materials used flow: water, whisky, smoke, sap, liquid glass. All are transformed by craft: distilling, coopering, ceramics, urushi and maki-e techniques, glassblowing, battuto and inciso, silversmithing, silk thread weaving. Coming together, elevated by craft into art.
