Hot summer days. It is the season I work on frames for the October exhibition in Yanaka
I made a short video about the finished frames.
https://youtube.com/shorts/X4i2FYfc1jc?feature=share
Yama /
This painting has been on my wall. Watching the Japanese TV show, “The Days” about the events inside the reactors in Fukushima brought me back to it.
The painting is from the story of the Tibetan got Yama. Heck of a story. The idea of a Mandala being frightened by Yama’s wrath was my own.
Next Exhibition in October /
My last exhibition was called, “Insignificant,” small paintings mostly ink on brown washi, small alleys around my house.
October, the next show, “Little Streets,” the same theme adding more color to the work. All seasons will be represented.
Red ball
Nihonga, Japanese art /
I admit having trouble with, “Nihonga,” Japanese painting.
I understand that things got crazy in the Meiji Era with the trendy new oil painting and western perspective invading Japan along with all the other imported technology. Perhaps something had to be done, a line in the sand. Local art and culture should certainly be preserved.
But the construct of Nihonga has become more abstract and stranger over the years. Students at the art universities in the Nihonga department will often make the same sort of image as the foreign art department students. The only real difference is in the materials. Nihonga professors defend Nihonga materials as though they were a new religion.
Nikawa, animal glue, as a binder is mixed, usually by hand, with pigments, to make a tempera paint. Nothing about these materials is unique to Japan.
Isn’t any painting made by a Japanese artist Japanese art?
That being said, this year I have been quite enjoying gofun, a white pigment that is central to the religion of Nihonga. Gofun is a calcium carbonate, white made from oyster shells and it works very differently from either zinc or titanium whites. I’m thinking it even works differently from chalk white, also calcium carbonate, with different micro-nutrients involved.
New Year, 2023 /
New Year brings new hope.
The Way of the Bath /
A sento is a public bath. It is not an onsen resort. Customs are a little different.
Some things are written on the wall - wash with soap before you get into the communal bath. Don’t drip water on the changing room floor, or put your towel into the tub. But there are unwritten rules that a bandai or local elder used to tell you. For example, it is rude to sit on the edge of the tub. If you tried that in the sento down the hill the bandai would stick his or her head into the bathing area and shout to you to, “get down please.”
Another hint, if there here are two baths in the men’s side and two in the woman’s. One bath is kept very hot, the other you can add old water to if you need to cool it. You should find out which is which before you start adding water.
A cover I painted for Sento Magazine