Root

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Meditative strokes of a pen dipped in ink placed on paper.  Drawing in the Japanese countryside within a farming valley full of edamame and rice fields surrounded by mountains of bamboo.  Hike up into the mountains and you’ll find Shinto temples surrounded by gingko trees. 

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I immigrated from Japan with my parents as a baby.  I returned for the first time as an artist-in-residence at Studio Kura during the autumn of 2017.  Sitting in the quiet under a persimmon tree with a scratchy crow quill dip pen reconnected me to my family roots. 

 

The act of drawing with ink, a media that requires commitment of time and mark, also teaches me to consider each movement.  Improvising around the unerasable ink, the flora and fauna and traditional architecture provided compositional challenges as I worked en plein air observing the countryside.  

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Below you will find a sample of the 70+ pieces I created during my month in Itoshima.