My newest book, 2nd volume about autumn and winter for wildflowers in Japan,has been released last week.

if somebody asked me  how  I feel in my mind while I work for painting pictures,

I would answer, I feel like to pray…

The Japanese empress Michiko, said ‘ The imperial family in Japan should be ‘prayer’.’

The ‘pray’  for Nature or worship to Nature is  basis of Japanese mentality.  Maybe I just  have the feeling naturally.

It is not the pray based on the written doctrine. if I have to explain it by words, I would say,

it is something like a desire to be united within nature…

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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.

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There is a topic which I have been wondering these days, it is about cutting fabric before starting to sew. That is: how overseas people are doing for that?

In fact, I usually do it directly on the floor.

In Japanese house, as many people know, we take our shoes off at the entrance, and keep our floor clean all the time. My own house which is in  a modern Japanese style,  doesn’t have any tatami in fact, but like most of Japanese people,  we are definitely conservative about our basic style about taking shoes off in the house.

In my childhood, my parents’ house was more traditional,  typical Japanese style house floored by tatami. we have used low table to do everything such as eating,reading, studying etc, sewing off course,  by  sitting directly on the floor.

Many things was done on the floor,too. My mother was ironing clothes on the floor, putting the flat ironing board. We spread futons (devet) on the floor at night to sleep on, and  when I was boring,   I often was lying on the floor  and looking the wood pattern of the ceiling to find some interesting shapes.

As long as I know, only Korean people have a very similar lifestyle. Korea and Japan is a kind of ‘brothers and sisters’ , so possibly this lifestyle might have been transfered into Japan in ancient time by immigrants from Korean peninsula . Thus  I suppose that Korean people often cut their fabric before sewing on the floor in the same way I do now, but how about the other people? Do they have a large table always?

Then I remind of a picture by Beatrix Potter in the tale of ‘the tailor of Gloucester’. In the picture, the old tailor is sewing on the board sitting cross-legged there, which  seems to me neither table nor floor, or in other words, seems to me  both.

His sitting style is the way like many Japanese men do on the floor in casual occasion, and also at the time of Buddism meditation. I found in the dictionally, this style is called in English ‘ sit tailor fashion’ it is interesting!

However, this kind of facility could be  particular for professional tailors, so normally people might  not have it. Then how they could do for that? and how about  for seamstresses?

That is my recent interest, and I am going to ask about this to my friend in Britain.

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This is our most recent work, designed and produced to special order from Kurosaka Pediatric and Allegic Clinic in Himeji, Japan.

Honestly, I was so delighted to receive the lovely request from them, and also very impressed when I was asked to put some small bunnies or birds among the large flower patterns, in order that kids patients can be happy to notice those small animals.

In Japan, it is not so often that hospital or clinic adopt such a  cheerful kind of design in their  facilities. I heard that, when Dr.Kurosaka was working in Britain, he found a hospital had a beautiful curtain with large flower pattern, then he decided to follow the idea  to create happy atomosphere in his own clinic.  So, this apron which we made is already 3rd generation of what they adopted.

I am just so happy to have involved in this work, and also very honored that my artwork  is used for the place where people can be ‘cured’.

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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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My Newest book will be released at the end of this month (April 2009). This book is coming with full colour illustrations for wildflowers grown in Japan. I have done all of the illustrations and texts and it took almost for 4 years since the project started until it will be out!

these days , it is getting really spring here. In taking a walk around my home, I found various wildflowers blooming and I remind of the same season in last year, I went out to get them for sketching.

Above right is the cover of the book ‘Nonohana Ehon’(means Picture book for Wildflowers’), and the left is the one of my sketchings for this book.( I’ve used the technique to make the paper look old )

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