Well may the world go this year
Christmas ink /
I stole this idea from my mother. She used to draw with a flair pen, which can make an antiseptic line, but she would go back at it with a little water on a brush and move around some of the ink around. With fountain pen in you can pretty much melt the line away.
Family and friends that have passed are missed and remembered at Christmas.
Two watercolors by my mother -
Another show gone /
This year’s exhibition was memorable in that it didn't exist. Thanks to the pandemic it was virtual, living here on line.
What to do when a show comes down? I have memories of Tori no ichi, the big Kumade festival I visit in Asakusa in November on the rooster days, tenth sign in the zodiac. This year there are only two rooster days, November 2nd, tomorrow and the 26th.
If you visit a Rooster shrine on the rooster day, or better, in the evening the crowds are tremendous as are the lights, as are the displays of kumade for sale, decorated rakes, to symbolically rake the money in the coming year.
My poet friend Sagae Ko contended it was the first event of the new year in Tokyo. He based one of our exhibitions on the premise, visiting different spots in town with our paintings and poems.
At first what impresses is of course the lights, crowds, the hundred food stalls that line the pilgrims way. What impressed me more deeply was visiting on a non-rooster day. The great warren of decorations, food, and toys were gone? All I found were parking lots. Was I in the right place? How could all that life and fun be gone?
Kumade hanging, Torinoichi
"Wise men fish here" /
On my Facebook page today I asked if a person goes to an art museum of answers or for questions. I suspect the wise look for questions. I find reflections, reflections of what I’m thinking, even if I don’t know I’m thinking it.
Today it was the roughest and most simple inks that got me.
First was a scroll by a tea master, Fujimura Yoken, in the tea section. The base of his painting much more than his calligraphy which seem to be made by a whole other person. I wonder, words or image which tells a better story?
The second was an ink by the hermit priest Ryokan.
Selling Art /
It has proven impossible to guess which paintings will sell in an exhibition. I’ve been at this over 30 years. I never know. Some years I sell every one. Some years only half.
I will admit a vexed relationship with money and art.
Mr. Blake said, “Where any view of money exists, art cannot be carried on.”
A wise man. Or was he? A genius certainly. And a man who’s funeral was paid for with borrowed money.
I don’t object to money. I think my trouble comes from growing up in a family of art. My mother was a painter and an art teacher. My eldest sisters the same. Both reminded me that young children’s art can be more beautiful than Picasso’s. A Picasso quote, “It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child.” My mother assured me that he never made it. But he got more money for his.
Art in my house was everywhere. Everybody made it. It was valuable, important, but not in a money way. You just did it. Everybody did it, like conversation. You don’t charge for conversation.
I remain confused about selling art.
I spent time in New York. It was the time of Warhol. He got money. It put a stain on the thing for me. For him, for that group, making money was the art. And it carries on.
As I say, I have a vexed relationship with selling art.
But every year I go thru the years crop and put my favorite paintings on the wall. It is an important thing, to dress them up with a frame, or at the very least to back them, take the creases out. Give them a little wall, to see what they can do with it.
And some I sell. I’m happy to do it. One can’t be one’s only collector, not enough space!
As I say, impossible for me to predict which ones will sell.
Virtual exhibition opens today /
Because of the pandemic I decided to have my exhibition on line. Still I put up paintings. No frames this year. I used clips and tacks. Unthinking I had a pistachio binge last night and developed a blister on the same thumb I used today to push in 52 thumbtacks.
