Monday, October 27, 2008

Kominkan Matsuri

Yea! I'm an exhibiting artist for a few minutes! My painting teacher hung the painting I did of the higanbana flowers in the little matsuri show in the neighborhood where she lives. It's amazing how much better my work looks mounted and framed :)



Here's the room with the art, calligraphy, and flower arrangment displays. It was actually surprising to me how many students take extra curricular calligraphy classes. It's nice to see the young ones taking an active interest in such a traditional art.


It was fun learning how to sign my name in a "scripty" kind of hiragana (bottom right). I spent most of the last class practicing, because I only had one chance to sign my work. I also reworked my inkan a little bit, so you can see that printed in red underneath my name. And I think that the signature is supposed to go on the left side, but I thought it was more balanced on the right. It's good to be the gaijin :)

Man, I have a goofy smile in that photo. My teacher was taking it with my cell phone camera, and the kids behind her were teasing her & making funny faces because my teacher was squinting so much to take the photo. These kids were later climbing all over me (I made the mistake of letting one climb up on my back so she could see the performance on stage) and playing with my hair, and asking me a million questions. Hilarious. Elementary school kids are the same everywhere I guess.
Sorry the photos are so small...I'll be stuck with my cell phone camera until my other one gets fixed...IF it can be fixed... :-(

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

ahhh...what's not to love about that goofy smile :o)

しゅうさく

xoxo

Anonymous said...

So where's the price tag? :-)
(and I'm with you about the lower right corner...)

Anonymous said...

You are really becoming quite an artist. Isn't it nice to have one of your pictures framed!
Aunt Louise

Tonykaku said...

ahh, the beauty and sadness of the higanbana.
nice work/play!
i am returning to my home away from home on monday so if you are in the Osaka/Kyoto area, look
for me taking photos of the autumn colors and/or eating takoyaki under a big maple tree and/or just sitting enjoying the passing of time in Japan.