October exhibition to start?

I have got about a week to change this mess into an exhibition.  Oh No! Wish me luck

 

 

 

Ichiyo’s shortcut through Yanaka

New Paintings

2013 October 5 - 20

JImusoan, Yanaka, Tokyo

　12:00～18:00 closed Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday

 http://brushink.com/

Urushi - Japanese Lacquer

Japanese urushi is 4 times the price of Chinese urushi, and Chinese urushi is not cheep.   30 dollars  for the Chinese... 120 dollars for the Japanese lacquer.  I'll take the 30.

That is what I usually say, but I started thinking. Japanese tea, good. Chinese tea, good, but really not the same.

Today I bought the Japanese urushi. I will use it on my new Ichio boxes for my October exhibition. I am interested to see how it works.

Last Live painting at Nakanosawa Museum

Two weeks ago I did a live painting.  The live painting accompanied an oude performance by Mr. Tokomi.  It was the Sunday program to close my exhibition.  It was my first time to hear an oude.  He learned in Tunisia, and plays it fine.

 

I had been thinking what to paint.  It seemed that dragons were the sub theme of the exhibition, so I decided to paint some on this mountain overlooking Maibashi.  To point of view of the Lantern was a mountain view of Gunma.  It was inspired by a visit to the museum last January.  The big city of Maibashi looked so small and far away from up in the mountain on that showy eve.

 

 

I started high up in the mountains.   A dragon far away.

then some swirls.  And all the time Mr. Tokomi was playing along on his oude.

soon we had another dragon and another.

And then it was done. 

 

 Thanks to all.  It was a lot of fun having an exhibition and get to do a live painting up in the mountains of Gunma.  Nice space, nice people.  A lot of fun.

Newspapers

I got some good news from the newspapers about the Nakanosawa Museum show.

Live painting at the Nakanosawa Museum

Last week I was in Gunma, at the Nakanosawa Museum for a talk about my exhibition and a live painting demonstration.  Some old friends and some new.  It was fun to dip the brooms and the brushes into the ink and try a live painting.  It is always a question as to what I should paint and a problem of how long to talk.  People come, some come a long way.  I want to try and share something.  But I don't want to run on so long as to make people bored.  I hoped to speak and paint for 15 or 20 minutes, but it seems I rambled on for 45.  These things happen.  I hope it was OK.  it is a little hard to know from the inside.  But nobody punched me and no one fell asleep, so OK. 

 

I will do one more live painting at the Museum on the last day, a much smaller painting.  It will be in connection with a closing day concert at the museum, Sunday June 30th.

 

 

I painted on 2 sheets of fine cotton cloth, using good sumi ink, a fine Japanese brush from Kumano, Hiroshima, and a small broom from the 100 yen store.

 

Nakanosawa Museum slideshow

  My sister taught me how to put up a slideshow to share photos of my dragon paintings -

http://www.slideshare.net/jimhathaway/nakanosawa-museum

Nakanosawa Museum, Gunma, Japan

I was setting up my exhibition last weekend in Gunma.  It was a contrast to my Japanese nagaya studio.

To supplement the Yamanote paintings I have been working on some larger dragon paintings, but my studio is a Japanese rokujo - 6 mat room.  And the longest I could stretch out my work for paintings was about 2 meters. 



But the longer dragons were 11 meters x 2.2 meters, so it was quite a struggle to keep them in proportion, and I was not able to see the full paintings until they were on the wall in the museum.  I had measured the museum by walking, 26 steps, and measured the height by my own 182 cm. standing by the wall.  I was in a bit of a panic when the dragons went on the wall, wondering if they would fit.

 

There were some tense moments. But in the end they fit.

 

I got to do some ladder work too, setting up a Gunma andon.