I blunder on. Today I took photos
Golden Sumida
Covid and the next exhibition /
Does anyone know what to do with Covid, with the Delta?
I don’t. A new semester is starting in the universities. Will I be teaching online again? In October I have my exhibition in my studio. Do I open it up to the public? What is safe? What is responsible?
This season I prepare. Frame making. Today I was backing ink paintings. I go on as thought it were going on.
Making Frames /
Donald Richie called the shrine at Ise a perpetual motion machine. He contended it would out last the pyramids. As the pyramids crumple, Ise remains the same. They rebuild it every 20 years, each generation the same as the last. The master carpenters that build it teach the next generation. It has been going on for 2000 years.
I have this one life. Every year I make frames. This year it felt like I was Ise. I do frame building every summer to teach myself how to do it again next year.
Ise has done it 100 times, me just 32.
This year I am building for my October exhibition, Living In Japan, New Paintings
Tears of a sinful woman /
Mike carries a rucksack, always heavy. Yesterday he pulled out a fat old book and gave it to me.
It isn’t the sort of book you start at the beginning. I tried the middle. In less than a minute I learned that the Vinaya-sutra says, “the marks on the sole of Buddha’s foot were made by the tears of a sinful woman”
I have been searching for the title for my October exhibition. Tears of a Sinful Woman, did not pass the Me Too test. I’ll keep looking.
Dojo /
This is an old drawing. It has been a couple years since the kids have been let loose on a wading pool full of these little fresh water eels. Quite fun for them to catch with their fingers, pre pandemic. They take them home for a fish bowl or the dinner table.
Maybe next summer.
New Colors /
Last week I opened the box of colors I got from my sister. This week I tried them on a painting. They were not what I expected. Working with color on washi is always indirect. Colors wet are richer, darker, more saturated, and lighten when they dry. This time it was more indirect. I had the colors in the solid sticks, then the colors as I ground them on black stone, then the colors in the white dish, then on paper, then finally different again when dry. All different versions of the same color.
These new Chinese sticks will take getting used to. I like new things, even very old new things like these.
