Broke it

I broke the little spoon I use to dip water to make ink. I didn’t think about the thing until I broke it. I can’t remember where I bought it or when. It was from one of the specialty shops serving the sumi ink using community in Ueno.

Like the spoon, I didn’t think about those shops until they were gone. They died quietly. No horns, bells or whistles like a pachinko. One by one they folded.

I had no spoon, and no place to buy a new one.

There are lots of ways to move water, but I was used to my little cup, and my dipping spoon. It didn’t matter that it looked like a swans head. It was tool I had used enough to forget it was there. I didn’t have to think when I used it.

I missed my spoon.

I missed the shop that sold it.

I went over to Jimbocho. Both their painting shops were gone as well. There just aren’t enough of us to keep them alive. Ouch. I just had a birthday, and was feeling older by the second.

Dinosaur Jim.

The good news is that I fixed the spoon with some epoxy and a thin steel nail.

The bad news is that my favorite kind of painting, while not mainstream for 150 years, seems to be about to dry up and blow away.

Cut up

I spent my day cutting up an artwork. It was an andon, a lantern. It was two meters tall and twelve meters around. I had made it for an exhibition in 2005, down the hill.
Kingyo gallery can be frustrating. It is a beautiful space and very nice people, but it is on a narrow  road that no one uses. Hundreds and hundreds of people walk past on the main road, Hebi Michi Dori, about ten meters away. But they don’t turn to come past the gallery. I made a giant lantern to draw people in.

It was a limited success. A lantern looks best at night, all lit up. Unfortunately the gallery was not open at night.
After the exhibition I packed it. Even broken into eight it was large to store, for thirteen years, every year thinking that this year I may have a chance to use it.
I never did.
Enough was enough. Today I cut it into pieces.
It took almost as much effort to cut up for garbage as it did to make in the first place.