Update: March 27, 2019

This article appeared in the online publication Kyoto News, and is reproduced with permission of the author. 'Giant Buddhist Statue Marks 25th Year Since Creation in U.S.' by Justin Maki.

A contemporary Buddhist statue thought to be the world's largest wooden image of the deity Fudo Myo-O recently passed the 25th year since it was completed and installed in its permanent home on the U.S. East Coast, following a years-long collaboration between a team of Japanese sculptors and the Maryland arts community that embraced the project.

The cedar statue, which stands just over 10 meters tall, depicts "The Immovable King of Light" -- a benevolent but fearsome manifestation of the Buddha who wields a sword, coiled rope and angry scowl against evils such as illusion and ignorance.

Yasuhiko Hashimoto, 64, the sculptor who initiated and led the effort along with colleagues Jinichi Ito and Isao Yanagimoto, said he felt drawn to the project at a time when Japanese culture was not well-known or appreciated in the United States.

"I knew America to be a free and open-minded country, though at the time (in the early 1990s) Americans tended to see Japan as an industrial nation represented by its cars," said Hashimoto, a native of Fukushima Prefecture who lives in Osaka. "Creating a Buddhist statue was a way to help introduce them to the depth of Japan's spiritual culture."

The project, which took place over the course of three years, officially began in the summer of 1990 at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore. With outside funding including from a Japanese arts patron and local in-kind donations, the sculptors worked in a temporary studio built for the purpose in a campus parking lot to bring the massive 6-ton figure to life.

While not explicitly aiming to create the world's largest statue of its kind, Hashimoto wanted to exceed both the 5-meter Fudo Myo-O the trio had previously made for a temple in Japan's Yamanashi Prefecture as well as the 8-meter historical masterpieces by 12th/13th-century sculptors Unkei and Kaikei, whose realism in depicting Buddhist deities greatly influenced the present Fudo's style.

"The audacity of size is a tremendous statement in this work," said Jane Elkinton, an Asian art specialist who witnessed the sculpture's creation as a professor at the Maryland Institute. She explained that while "the stance, lay of the drapery with its elegant flutters, and proportions" of the giant work are consistent with Japanese tradition, it also embodies a "humanistic quality" for the sake of Western viewers by changing the customary blue skin to a warmer, human tone and shifting the typically straight-ahead angry glare to a "less confrontational" gaze to the side.

The sculpture team used the "yosegi zukuri" or joined-block technique to assemble the figure from multiple hollow parts, giving students and visitors an understanding of an artistic practice perfected in 11th-century Japan.

"The greatest aspect of the project was the overwhelming generosity on the part of the sculptors,"Elkinton said. "Hashimoto inspired everyone who visited his studio with his talent, his ready communication, and his enthusiasm."

From its early stages, the project sparked interest among students who either assisted in the sculpture work or helped spread the word beyond campus. Kerrie Bellisario, a senior at the art school when the project was starting, heard about it through her library job and soon got involved as a liaison for the press and a guide for visiting groups.

"Jinichi Ito taught me basic carving techniques, and with a group of schoolchildren we did some carving on one leg of the Fudo," she recalled. "Seeing the Fudo, carving it, and being introduced to Japanese culture was such an eye-opening experience for the children."

Bellisario went on to visit Japan a number of times while organizing an international art exhibit in Hiroshima, a collaboration with other students from the sculpture project that became an important early step toward her career as a design teacher and international curator.

"If it weren't for the Fudo project which led to the Bridge (program in Hiroshima), I can't imagine what path my life would have taken," she said.

More than a year after getting under way, the team finished its detailed carving work and assembled the unpainted figure at its full height for the first time in 1991.

The lacquering, painting, gold leaf work and other finishing touches were completed after a six-month hiatus, during which arrangements were made to donate the piece to Becton, Dickinson and Company for its headquarters in northern New Jersey, where it still stands today.

Every few years, conservators visit the medical technology company's 140-acre (about 567,000-square-meter) campus to attend to the statue, removing dust with special squirrel-hair brushes and reapplying gold leaf as necessary.

"I'm grateful the piece continues to be cared for so well, and also for the open-mindedness of everyone who embraced the project in the first place," Hashimoto said. "Although we couldn't readily express in English what we wanted to share, the experience let us communicate with American people whose kindness and curiosity about the world we will never forget."

Following completion of the project, Hashimoto continued to sculpt fine-art pieces that have appeared in shows across Japan and abroad, while Ito resumed his work in temple carpentry.

Yanagimoto, alongside whom Hashimoto had apprenticed under the late Japanese Order of Culture-winning sculptor Seiko Sawada, has since become a university professor.

The deity Fudo Myo-O, known as Acala in the Hindu tradition where it originated, gained prominence in Japanese Buddhism over a thousand years ago, particularly in the burnt-offering ceremonies of the Shingon sect.

The protector god was depicted in wood sculptures in Japan as early as the 9th century, with larger figures in a standing position appearing in the 11th century as the joined-block technique advanced.

Myokei Matsumoto, a well-known Japanese sculptor of Buddhist images, is reportedly at work on a wooden Fudo in excess of 10 meters for a temple in Saitama Prefecture, with completion expected around the opening of the Tokyo Summer Olympics in 2020.