There are some things the Japanese do so well. It is of course a country famous for its tea. There is an elaborate, centuries old ceremony surrounding this beverage. That is hot tea. As the temperatures rise and the sweaty Kyoto summer begins its assault hot tea becomes less appealing. I turn to aisu tii (iced tea) during this season. In the States iced tea often comes from the same dispenser as Coke or any other soft-drink. It is a sad, syrupy bastardization of this noble drink. If you are lucky, you will get a Lipton brew poured from a glass pitcher and served with a slice of lemon. In Kyoto, in places like Malebranche cafe, iced tea is something altogether different. It comes in a cast-iron kettle, the same way it would if you were drinking it hot. It comes with a tall glass half full of ice. It comes with a bowl of ice and ice tongs. It comes with a little plate of perfectly sliced lemon. It comes with one of their famous Chanoka (Langues de chat) matcha flavored cookies. It comes with a metal stirrer, a straw and instructions in Japanese and English how to pour the perfect iced tea. All this is brought to you on a lovely wooden tray. With bottled tea from various beverage giants becoming more and more popular in Japan, especially among young people, fewer people take the time to brew tea in a pot. Something so wonderfully simple, serenely pleasant and culturally important has, even in Japan, been reduced to a vending machine experience.
My first June in Japan, the summer of 2015, was not particularly wet. June is the "rainy season" and like all the seasons here, was highly anticipated and much talked about. I expected 20+ days of rain. Like a snowless winter in the mountains, it was a dud. I was disappointed. This June there has been rain, a lot of rain, almost everyday. It is not a heavy rain; it is not an all-day deluge. It is mostly soft and pleasant. The asphalt of the streets, continuously stained by rain, is a richer black. The leaves of the trees and the moss of the earth have a phosphorescent green glow. The cedar of the minka (traditional houses) is most fragrant when rain dampened. The whole city smells somehow green, fresh, alive. Based on last years rainfall I have misjudged the gray skies on several occasions and have been caught in an afternoon shower without an umbrella. This was not altogether disagreeable and I was not inclined to curse my gambling spirit or Mother Nature's humor. A quiet tribute to Gene Kelly seemed more apropos. My flea market umbrella has begun to rust at the hinges from overuse. I seem to always be drying out socks and shoes. No sooner do I water the plants on my terrace than the rain begins to fall. I grew up in southern California where rain is a somewhat rare event. My Japanese friends have no great love for this season. For me, it is a joy. "I'm singing in the rain, just singing in the rain..."
I still go to Uji once a month for acupuncture. There is an amazing bakery there called Tamakitei around the corner from where I used to live. Today I decided to pick up something for lunch following my appointment. I was happy to discover they had moved to a larger space down the street. Their popularity is undiminished. On my way to the train I had a look down my old street. I was surprised and saddened to see the house at 12-19 Shinkai Gokanosho had disappeared. Not a trace. Even the beautiful old pine that had been so carefully groomed over the decades was gone. The foundation for a new house had been laid. This was never my house, but for six months in the autumn and winter of 2013/14 it felt like it. I made it my home. My life in Japan began here. I was an absolute beginner when I alighted from the train at Obaku Station that September. I knew nothing. My self-guided education in Japanese culture was centered here at this address. One of my greatest paintings was completed on the second floor of that house - my atelier. The wrecking crew would never know this. They would never know an American artist lived here, that they were dismantling a brief but significant part of his life. To them it was just an old house. I live in Katsura now. I've lived here much longer than I ever lived in Uji. But Uji is special and always will be because it is a marker, a watershed for me. My life took a different direction when I arrived there. One I wasn't expecting. That shift is (or was) inextricably tied to that wonderful mid-century modern house. Wabi-sabi is something I was introduced to while living in Uji. At the core of this concept is the impermanence of things. Everything disappears eventually. What we are left with is memories, a vague outline of what used to be. And memories too fade.
Western-style glamour is Tokyo, not Kyoto. Kyoto has an elegant sophistication, but red carpet Hollywood glitz? Not so much. But last night Kyoto felt very chic indeed at the opening of the new exhibition "Hello My Name Is Paul Smith" at the National Museum of Modern Art Kyoto (MoMAK) . I worked for Paul Smith for 10 years and saw half a dozen runway shows in Paris during my time with the company. There is something wonderful about seeing the Paul Smith tribe gather for big events. There is no mistaking the invited guests and employees of a Paul Smith party. There is a distinct Paul Smith look. But it is the individual interpretation of the clothes that creates that look. And this is always as interesting and entertaining as the new collection. Paul is something like a rock star in Japan. He is politely mobbed by the Japanese. He couldn't take two steps without someone stopping him for a photograph and/or autograph. It is funny to see, really. A soon-to-be 70-year-old man who has never played the electric guitar or acted in a feature film swarmed by adoring fans. For me, fashion exhibitions, like architecture exhibitions tend to be very dry and one-dimensional. There are the mannequins dressed in the designer's clothes; there are videos of the runway shows; there are photos from the ad campaigns. Perhaps because Paul Smith is not that kind of designer and it is not that kind of fashion company, this exhibition is engaging, and more notably, it is fun (full credit to the curatorial team at the Design Museum). I don't think Paul has ever taken what he does too seriously. This combined with his delightful sense of humor shines through in this show.
Of course this exhibition is peppered with a fair amount of nostalgia for me. "Ah yes, I remember that." Wistful? No. I am grateful for the experience, but I am happy with the path I have chosen. Ironically I would never have attended this opening party if I were still an employee of the Paul Smith company. Anyway, it's cooler to be on the guest list. (Hisashi Morikawa どうも ありがとう!)
I generally credit my childhood friend Hiroki Shimamura with introducing me to Japanese culture. We met around 1980. But before Hiroki there was Speed Racer (Mach GoGoGo in Japanese). This debuted on American television in September of 1967 and ran for 52 episodes until March of 1968 - before I was born. But its immense popularity meant that by the time I was of the cartoon-watching age it was still being aired in syndicated re-runs weekday afternoons. The animated cartoons I was watching at the time were Looney Tunes, the Flintstones, Tom & Jerry, Scooby-Doo, Where Are You and the Pink Panther Show. While all very different in terms of style and story, these were all American productions. Speed Racer was something new, something unusual. It was strange. But it was cool. It was this strange-but-cool factor that drew me in. It didn't look or sound like anything else I was watching. First of all, it wasn't funny. A cartoon that wasn't funny. That was peculiar. There was an excitement and a danger in the stories more real than an anvil falling on a coyote's head. I don't think I knew it was a Japanese cartoon, but I did recognize the odd way the characters spoke, how the voices and the movement of their mouths didn't synch as they did in other cartoons. Speed and his pals had a different look with their big, bright eyes and fierce determined expressions. The animation was also curious - flat, jerky, more like a moving comic book than the fluid motion of a Warner Brothers cartoon. And that theme song! "Go Speed Racer, Go Speed Racer, Go Speed Racer Go-o!" This sounded like something on FM radio, not a theme song for a kids show. Mach GoGoGo was the creation of Kyoto-born Tatsuo Yoshida. He and his two brothers founded their comic/animation studio Tatsunoko Productions in 1962. Following on the success of their early race car themed comic books like Pilot Ace and Hayabusa Q they launched the comic book version of Mach GoGoGo in 1966. The animated series premiered on Fuji Television in Japan in April of 1967. A couple of weeks ago I happened upon an original Hayabusa Q comic book at the Kyoto City Hall Flea Market. The copy was a bit tatty but for ¥300 I couldn't resist. The roots of Speed Racer and my Japanese experience were in this thin book. Mach GoGoGo
"Art is a flower that blossoms in solitude." - Yone Noguchi (1875 - 1947) poet and father of sculptor Isamu Noguchi
A walk into the hills and down a country road. There is a bend created by a wall of rocks. This is not an ordinary stone fence demarcating farms or the villas of aristocrats. This wall is made up of discarded stone sculpture, thousands of practice pieces that literally didn't make the cut. Nature and time have slowly overtaken these would-be works of art. This is the approach to the Isamu Noguchi Garden Museum. In the spring of 1969 Japanese-American artist Isamu Noguchi established his studio in Mure-cho in Kagawa Prefecture. He spent about half of each year here working until his death in 1988. The other 6 months were spent at his studio in Queens, New York. Noguchi came to this region for the stone, but beyond this practical reason it is easy to see why he was inspired to work here, the wide open space, the beautiful rugged terrain, the Seto Inland Sea off in the distance.
His original studio is a dream - a large, wooden minka (farmhouse), earthen floors, light pouring in from the high gable windows. The boundaries of inside and outside blurred by the giant sliding doors. It just feels like art. What else could happen within these walls? It is always interesting for me to see the work space of an artist. Noguchi's tools - hammers, chisels, hand-held power tools, wenches and enormous saws with blades like the sun - are all as he left them. Decades of dust and rust cover them softly. A sort of beautiful melancholy. Wabi-sabi. The sculpture garden is a place to contemplate Noguchi's work for hours, days, a life time. I am disappointed by the imposed time constraint. The Noguchi Museum in Queens is better suited for long conversations with his art. This lovely, semi-rural location asks us to slow down and let the pieces speak. To rush through is almost criminal. There is something very welcoming and familiar about this place. I don't want to leave.
