Two rooms have to share it, so it is carved through — from both sides.
A ranma is the pierced panel above the sliding doors, in the gap between the lintel and the ceiling. It is there so that light and air can pass between two rooms that are otherwise shut off from one another.
Which sets the problem that makes the craft. The panel belongs to both rooms at once. It is seen from both sides, so it must be carved from both sides — one thick board of keyaki or paulownia, cut clean through and modelled front and back, with no reverse to hide the working in. There is no good side and no bad side. A carver who is weak on the far face is simply found out by the people in the next room.
One board of keyaki or kusunoki, thick enough to carve through.
The design is drawn straight onto the wood, both faces.
Waste is cut out. From here the board cannot be mended.
Undercut so the panel reads from both rooms it divides.
Inami in Toyama is where the best of them come from, and the reason is a fire. In 1763 the main hall of Zuisen-ji, the temple at the centre of the town, burned down. Carver-carpenters were sent from the Higashi Hongan-ji in Kyoto to rebuild it, and they taught the local men while they worked. Then they left, and the town kept carving.
They still work with something like two hundred chisels and no machine on the finishing cuts, in workshops that open straight onto the street. You hear Inami before you see it.
Ranma are quietly disappearing — not because anyone stopped liking them, but because houses stopped having the shape that needs one. Panels now come out of houses being pulled down and go to dealers. What was a piece of architecture becomes a piece of sculpture, which is a demotion dressed up as a promotion.
A single street of workshops, all of them open to the pavement, all of them carving. The reason is a fire: in 1763 the main hall of Zuisen-ji burned, carver-carpenters came from the Higashi Hongan-ji in Kyoto to rebuild it, and they taught the local carpenters while the work went on. Then they went home. Inami did not stop.
Pieces are found one at a time, in Japan, and photographed before they are listed. Tell us what you are looking for, and we will write when something arrives that answers it.
We write when there is something to write about — some months twice, some months not at all.
Noted. We will write when something arrives.