Kamu Nagasawa is visiting from Tokyo Zokei University as part of the Maine Coast Stone Symposium at Boothbay Railway Village. Nagasawa, who hails from Sapporo, Japan, attended Zokei for his bachelor’s and master’s degrees before becoming an undergraduate professor.

“Three days prior to leaving, Kamu cracked his knee in a motorcycle accident, but he decided to come anyway,” said BRV Executive Director Margaret Hoffman.

“Oh, and he doesn’t speak very much English,” Hoffman said as she introduced a couple of the artists at lunch. 

As Nagasawa made his way to the picnic table on crutches— and with his lunch— we were introduced by Hoffman and Andreas von Heune, who offered his help communicating. Through gesture and a few common English words, we discovered that Nagasawa’s professor and mentor was renowned sculptor Katsumi Ito.

“The first symposium in the state was put together by Don Meserve and Jesse Salisbury,” said von Heune. Salisbury, of Bath, studied sculpture abroad in an exchange program. “(Katsumi) Ito was one of the sculptors that Jesse knew from Japan. Ito was his professor and was one of the participants of the first symposium.” 

In the meantime, between Hoffman, von Heune and another sculptor, Lance Carlezon,, we tried using mobile apps to break the language barrier. But it was pretty clear from Nagasawa’s reactions, the phone was speaking nonsense back to him.

“Maybe the app doesn’t work. Are you sure he understood, or did he just laugh at it,” Hoffman asked Carlezon. 

“Yes, he understood it,” said Carlezon. “It asked ‘Does Godzilla still live in Tokyo?’” 

As von Heune, Carlezon and the other sculptors began heading back to work, Hoffman brought us inside from the noise of the carving equipment, and found Annette Bossler, an old friend who speaks Japanese. 

Bossler, an energies consultant from Bremen, travels back and forth to Japan. She introduced herself to Nagasawa and they understood each other perfectly.

We asked Nagasawa how and when he discovered stone carving. He said that around 10 years ago, he was in his fourth year at university and stone carving was part of the course he was in. He starting producing stone carving art about six years ago, said Bossler.

“It’s not before he starts that he has a clear vision of what he wants to do,” Bossler said as Nagasawa articulated his artistic process. “He first looks at the stone and the type and character of the stone and then he starts working on it.”

Nagasawa has never been to the United States. He shared some of his thoughts about Maine.

“He is most impressed with the nature, and all the forest, here, a lot of different wildlife that he has not seen in Japan,” said Bossler. “Especially moose. He’s amazed by seeing moose here.”

The nature of sculpting stone is also at the heart of his motivations in teaching. When asked his favorite part about teaching, Nagasawa said most of his students are discovering stone carving for the first time.

“What he enjoys most is just to see their reaction when they do it the first time and how surprised they are,” said Bossler. “That’s the part he really enjoys, that he finds interesting— to see how the students react to this first-time experience.”

The Maine Coast Stone Symposium runs through Aug. 31. The live stone sculpture event runs through Sunday, Aug. 20. For more information, visit https://railwayvillage.org/

Boothbay Railway Village is located at 586 Wiscasset Road/Route 27, Boothbay. Telephone: 633-4727.