mayumi maeda 2012

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The lovely exhibition is opened toay at LINNET store, and will keep going until 24th July. This is a small display of sewing and drawing works by Vejas,  a 13 years old boy who lives in Quebec in Canada.

It was in last year that I received the first letter from Vejas. Nice drawings and a hand work was enclosed.

He was a on-line customer for LINNET, but we never imagined he was a 13 years old.

He wrote in his letter ‘ though I am a guy, I like sewing and hand made’ and also he told that he has Lithuanian origin.

I wrote back to him that I was so impressed by his works and drawings, and I don’t think it is funny if boy likes handmade and sewing, as LINNET is working with some ‘male’ artists  for sewing and handmade, because they are so talented. I thought Vejas is also very creative and he can be a creator when he is older. and also I asked him whether he have been to Lithuania, as Lithuania is very famous in Japan for its flax and linen production.

So, He wrote me back again saying he have been to Lithuania, for a funny reason that was for his grandpa’s dentistry!  I loved to read his story in Lithuania, it made me feel I was in a kind of American novel.

That was how we have started exchanging letters.

Gradually, my impression has grown bigger and bigger for those works by Vejas.  So I asked him if he agrees to display his works in LINNET store, as a small exhibision titled ‘the letters from Vejas’ and he agreed.

Those works are lovely, created by young hand of 13 years old, but also those ideas have enough quality to inspire us, fully grown-ups.

Additionally, his works and thoughts reminds me how I felt and thought when I was same age as Vejas.  Those feelings and thoughts are my core, unchanged trunk. Now it has  many shoots, branches, leaves, flowers and fruits, and the trunk has grown more thicker and steady.   I feel we are so close, beyond generation difference, that I enjoyed to talk with him by my ‘trunk’.

(above:one of my most favorite of Vejas’s drawings  ’Forlorn Bunny’

Vejas loves Japanese cartoons(manga) and told me that one day he would like to visit Japan.

I believe he can be a creator, maybe cartoonist or picture book writer&artist, if he would like to be, and I eagerly hope he would.

(Above left: Drawing titled ‘What to make today?’.

Tags: Art, kids.

I came across the photo works by Ichiro Kojima by chance, on TV program, which was introducing his photo exhibision held in Aomori prefecture (northern part of Japan).

By that time, I didn’t know his name. He died in 1960s when he was 39 years old. He was already getting famous when he was alive, for his artistic photos of the nature and the peasant’s life in Aomori and Hokkaido. However after his death, he was almost forgotten, and also he is mostly unknown in abroad.the exhibision this year could be the revival and revaluation of his works in Japan.

The image of northern part of japan, such as Aomori and Hokkaido of that time,  may be, I suppose, similar to the image of  the northern part of the UK in 1940s-1960s.

Cold and severe climate, dull sunlight, bulk of snow, hard life…Kojima’s photos carry those images very directly , but at the same time, those severe reality turned to the   artistic and beautiful forms in his works.

Talking about some of his last works which are printed in high contrast, they are almost like the abstract paintings, getting rid of any substantial forms. 

I heard that Kojima was linked to Jean-François Millet by the critics, but  I myself, remind of the photo works by Mario Giacomelli from Kojima’s works.

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