My Town, Exhibition, 10/2005

Icarus over Ikebukuro,  October 2003

Sept 29 - October 14, 2002

Solo Exhibition of new landscape Ink paintings 

At JiMuSoAn, Yanaka, Tokyo

My favorite Christian symbol isn't Christian at all.  It is the evergreen Christmas tree - alive and green on the darkest night of the year. I, too, am an animist at heart.  That is what this exhibition is about - the green between the gray, the grass that grows through cement, the fragile spark of life that exists even in the heart of the coldest city, the spark of life that exists even in the coldest heart
animism
n : the doctrine that all natural objects and the universe itself have souls; "animism is common among primitive peoples" 
Source: WordNet (R) 1.6, (C) 1997 Princeton University 
Etymology: German Animismus, from Latin anima soul
Date: 1832

Walking the dog in a Gourd, ink on washi 2001

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Tour the gallery 

Blue is not a color. It is a feeling. It comes from the recent history of our Fuji-mi-zaka (Fuji-view-slope) in Yanaka.

It is the same the world around I guess. But it was a surprise to this visitor in Japan. Mt. Fuji was a god. There were religious shrines dedicated to Fuji throughout Tokyo. Older people still bow in respect when they pass the last remaining Fuji view near my house.

But even Mt. Fuji must give way to the modern god. Money must grow. Our last Fuji view is all but gone now, blocked by more towers of cement.

It is hard to watch the changes

Small streets, wooden houses, children, trees, finally the sky is taken from us.

The good and the bad - Many of the paintings in this exhibition are from my new book of paintings and essays, Shitamachi Gaijin.

A quick look at a reference book tells us that Japanese stone jizos are likenesses of Ksitigarbha, Sanskrit for “womb of the earth,” one of the most popular bodhisattvas in Japanese Buddhism, usually represented as a monk with a jewel in one hand and a staff in the other.  Jizo’s vow to help all suffering beings has made him a very popular figure from the Heian period (794-1185) on.  The references also mention that jizo is often “syncretized with native deities.”  It is particularly associated with helping children, travelers, and those beings suffering in hell.

 This syncretizing interests me most, older deeper things that still live under the veneer of newer religions, like the pagan tree spirit inside the Christian Christmas tree.  Universal, rather than primitive, images that have been part of us from even before we evolved into what we call modern man. 

All of the paintings are painted with brush, sumi ink and a little traditional color on hand made Japanese Washi paper. 

see painting

I teach English at night.  My students teach me well.  In one small conversation class I was doing the usual practice, asking students about their families.  I said, “My grandfather was a farmer.”  My  first student said, “My grandfather was a farmer too.”  My second student said, “My grandfather was a famous artist.”  I guessed she made a mistake.   My students do not say such things. 

It is something gaijin learn quickly.  If you meet a person from New York you find all the good things he or she has done in the first 5 minutes.   You can know a Japanese for 15 years and not learn. 

I asked her, "What did you your great grandfather do?”  She said, “He was a famous artist too.”  I knew she was making a mistake.  I was her teacher I had to find the mistake. She was a new student.  Maybe the level was too high for her. I looked at my class list.  I found her name, Takamura.  Oh my god.  I asked, “What was your grandfather's given name.”  She said, “Kotoro.”  I said, “Oh.”

Takamura Kotaro used to live near my house.  He was one of the greatest and most famous sculptors in modern Japan.  He is also famous for his poetry.  His best know poems are about his beautiful wife, who went mad, and died in spire of his care.  One of his most famous poems, "Chieko Sho," uses a quote from his wife, "Tokyo has no sky, said my wife Chieko."  This was written in the 1930's 

The night after I met Kotaro's granddaughter I didn't sleep well.  I had dreams that Kotaro and Chieko were walking in front of my house.  In my dream Chieko was laughing.  Kotaro said, “It is true - Tokyo has no sky. “ 

The next day I started a series of paintings that eventually made up this exhibition.

 The busiest train line in the world does not go anywhere. 

 The Yamanote sen carries more passengers than any other train line in the world, but you can ride it all day and not go anywhere at all.   It goes in a circle.  If you ride for an hour you can get off at the same place you got on.

 The circle is a great old symbol.  It is the most famous symbol in Zen sumi painting.  The circle of life -  everything and nothing at the same time.  It is eternity

 But I did not want to paint eternity - I wanted to paint Tokyo.  Even the freshest gaijin visiting Tokyo quickly discovers that Tokyo is not a city - It is many cities all stuck together.  The Yamanote sen is one of the things holding this mess together.

 In Edo people lived on the rivers and canals.  People do not live on the rivers anymore - They live on the train.

How many million people ride the Yamanote sen every day?  I don’t know.  But it seemed to me no one really took time to look at it.  The Yamanote sen was like a person you have been married to for a long time - you know they are there, but you never really look at them.

This was my challenge, to look at the Yamanote sen with fresh eyes, to see the beauty that was there, and to show that beauty to other people.

Then I realized - this idea was dangerous.  29 stations, all painted in black ink, all the same size.  Wow, this could be very boring.  Nobody likes a boring show.  It was also my challenge, to see a special thing special about each station, to use a different brush, a different color black, a different kind of washi - to make each painting from a different point of view. 

mailto:sumiink@hotmail.comall material copyrighted (C)Jim Hathaway 2001 

Thanks to Mizuno-san at LiquidSitefor help with my Japanese language pages