Top (L-R): Kei’ichiro Matsuda, Artist (Name not known), Artist (Name not known), Miyuki Ishizaki, Michelle Zacharias, Masako Otani.
Back (L-R): Takashi Yokoyama, Midori Takahashi, Yayoi Kobayashi, Yumiko Nohara, Kaoru Tatikame, Miyako Araki
The trip to the Toguri Art Museum was not the first art tour I had taken with Alice Gordenker. I had taken one the week before at the newly Metropolitan Teien Art Museum. Masks from the Musée du quai Branly in Paris are currently on display in the prince’s old residence. Wow! Beauty overload! How else do I explain the beauty of this Art Deco residence that was custom built by a French architect with French and Japanese craftspeople, including Rene Lalique for one, and that provided an elegant backdrop for the powerful images of the masks from all over the world? If you want a glimpse, Tokyo Dandy and the Asahi Shimbun have a few photos from a tour for the press I assume.
I often cycle by a house that has hand-drawn portraits hanging outside on their concrete fence. At first, from a distance, I thought somebody had copied photographs of people onto cardboard and hung them outside. One day, however, I stopped and looked carefully at the portraits. They were ceramics!
I cannot believe that I have managed to post some work every single day this week! Unlike other people, I do not usually draw sketches so I was worried about how easily I could do this challenge. I do have more finished drawings but I decided that in the spirit of all those posting sketches I would post works in progress.
Everybody who knows me knows that I like to draw large. Regardless of the medium, bigger is better. This means that it takes longer for me to finish an etching or a pencil drawing, because I have a large surface area to cover with thin lines. Liquid media like paint or ink can fill large areas much more quickly. Large pieces of artwork can also have other disadvantages in the Japanese market.
