on listening

one of the great pleasures of Mashiko was meeting the incredible people who live there. I will write about 2 of them today. Yuko san and Ono san live in a traditional farmhouse, have a pet rooster and know how to throw a party. The night I arrived was cold and rainy, I got lost, got the wrong train, was starting to panic... but when I called ono san he put me at ease. "i am waiting for you." His studio is attached to the house with a beautiful irori, charcoal fire pit. there were plates of food surrounding the fire, in all sizes and styles of pottery. there were a bunch of potters and artists there with us, their faces in the half light of the kitchen were beautiful. we were like the potato eaters, hunkered down around a focal point of fire and food.

Ono san loves music and has an amazing stereo system with huge speakers, he played a great mix of rock and roll and jazz that night, I remember Cannonball Atterly and Janis Joplin, maybe some stones and miles davis? maybe... as the night got later and later we switched from sake to tea to coffee and cake. (3 ish?) then finally a bath and bed. I loved how we all started to relax, sing, listen, snack and tease each other.

Watching Ono san listening to music is a real treat. He can't talk, he sits back in his chair, eyes closed, listening with complete attention. it made me so happy. when i was a child, I didn't go to preschool, I hung out with my mom and listened to records and the radio. We had an old record player that I could stack up with 45's or 78's. I would put a pillow on the edge of the speaker and listen to music for hours.

I have started to listen to music in the studio, when trimming pots or doing things that allows for drifting and half listening. But I, too, am incapable of really listening to music and talking or reading at the same time. I brought a cd of unacompanied violin suites by bach back to them when I returned. We listened to it for hours, I remember falling asleep around the irori with the cd still playing, and finally crawling off to bed. Ono san had a recording of the same music by another artist, so we listened to that one too, hearing the difference in breath, pacing and interpretation. this was one of the highlights of my trip.

i hope you're keeping some kind of record

"I'm just looking for a moment that I recognize and love

... just wait and be receptive in the silences, you mustn't want, don't think even...

catch the essence, better to soak it up, let it overwhelm you...

lucidity doesn't come with words all the time."

~ Brigitte Lacombe via Charlie Rose

I love looking at photography and taking pictures, I started taking self portraits in Kyoto, I did it on the last road trip too, more as a kind of a joke, and a way of keeping a record. It's so curious that in every culture- at land marks, temples, museums -the grand canyon we need to have pictures of ourselves there. Why? I will sometimes take a leaf or a pebble as a way to trigger a memory. Once in a while I will ask someone to photograph me with my camera, but invariably the pictures are terrible, or not what I want...

Most of the pictures are really bad, but so interesting. I watched a guy taking a picture of his girlfriend in front of one of the largest bronze sculptures of the buddha in Kamakura. (of infinite compassion)... He dropped the camera-- they thought it was broken, and everything in that moment changed. her smiling for the camera turned into whining and nagging and then back again to smiling for the camera when they decided it was fine. It was a great moment, so telling of how we live, how we think we can treat each other and yet have this blindness to it.

I think that what I have been through by choice and circumstance has totally changed the way that I feel about life and love and work. I still feel heart broken sometimes, but I hope that I can recognize love and compassion and absurdity too. life is so crazy. What I love about photography is getting to take a longer look at what I see in any given moment. I have always taken it seriously- it is part of my internal development of how sensitive I can become to light, composition and feel. I'm thinking about my work so much right now, how my work is going to feel. I have been overwhelmed, so much is happening that I can't articulate, which is also strange, because I write as a way of working through everything.

Maybe it's just this extended period of solitude again. Cannot escape my head, trying to accept that things will emerge when the time is right. Trying not to just be in survival mode, but open and curious. I think that we all want revelation and transcendence, to be acknowledged. how we get there is a different story.

storm of stars

I know the truth

forget all other truths

no need for anyone

on this earth to struggle.

look it is evening

look it is nearly night

what will you say?

poets, lovers, generals.

the wind is level now,

the air is wet with dew

the storm of stars in the sky

will turn to quiet.

and soon, all of us

will sleep beneath the earth

we, who never let each other

sleep above it.

Marina Tsvetaeva

japan is an island

I have been spending the last week or so in the southern part of Honshu, in Osaka and Wakayama. I am finally at the edges, and on the Seto sea, on ferries, and beaches. I am so happy to be near rivers and oceans during this heat wave. I joined this group of friends for a couple of days, sharing yoga and meals together. They made Osaka for me. (l-r) Momoe, Emi, and Nanako.

doors

i have always liked doors, old barn doors with home made slot latches, skinny screen doors that slapped closed behind you, the squeaky wooden doors in the house that i grew up in, especially the door to the attic because it had a cast iron handle that i could barely open. The door would swell in humid weather, but I could hear my brother announcing his imaginary baseball games, and I always wanted to hang out with him. I distinctly remember the white doors in my piano teachers house, because of the cut glass door knobs that were always cool to the touch. Gaston Bachelard talks about fingertip memory. " If the house is the first universe for its young children, the first cosmos, how does its space shape all subsequent knowledge of other spaces, of any larger cosmos? Is that house a 'group of organic habits' or even something deeper, the shelter of the imagination itself?" from the Poetics of Space

the doors here are fantastic, I have been taking tons of pictures of doors, door handles, and door frames. I think that I could build a house around one good door.

when my grandparents house was torn down a few years ago, I asked my dad to see if he could get a door for me- an attic door, a closet door- anything. He brought back a cast iron door latch and handle with a thumb depressor, he owes me a door. (he doesn't know this yet) but he is the best collaborator- we always have fun building things together. maybe that will be the door that inspires the house, who knows.

what are you doing this summer? what are you looking at and thinking about?

tomorrow I am going to do yoga with Nanako, we met for a yoga class tonight. She is teaching yoga, and studying ayurveda in Osaka.

other things...

go to the beach

whale watching

stand under a waterfall

climb mt fujji? maybe,

drink more tea with mochi

daily yoga

daily drawing

daily photograph

I am really enjoying the slow time, and being able to notice all of the little things, I miss working though, and my studio- with my work under my hands. I am drawing a little bit, thinking alot. Feeling really grateful for the opportunity to experience Japan in this way. the rainy season has been beautiful and hot. I walk through city neighborhoods and temple grounds in sluicing rain, stopping for cold noodles or iced green tea. The pace of life is lovely.