(four)est

(four)est

an art collaboration with Nature by Robert Wallace

April 4, 2018 – April 4, 2022

Kyoto: Kuta | Keihoku | Kameoka | Miyama

Preview

Sunday, March 25, 2018 12:00 – 18:00

be-kyoto gallery

I have long been inspired and influenced by the unsolicited and involuntary art collaborations between Mother Nature and Man.  A concrete wall or corrugated steel siding stained by rain and wind and sun and time.  Without a brush or pigment or any artist tool whatsoever Nature creates incredible pictures from and upon the most mundane man-made objects.

I can’t say what first drew me to these “found paintings”.  Perhaps it was the absolute randomness of the design, the sort of wabi-sabi essence, completely free of intent.  Maybe it was the furtive and clever subversion of man’s vainglorious and stupid constructions.  Maybe it was a secret joy, the pleasure I got from discovering such pictures in my day-to-day travels that few others would notice or be interested in.

For years I have aspired to emulate these beautiful, natural artworks that have evolved over decades, sometimes centuries.  It is futile and consequently humbling.

So after some 25 years of painting I decided to collaborate directly with Nature.  I would paint some pictures and then pass them on to Her to do what She does without direction or influence from me.  The (four)est project was born.

I have painted four pictures.  They loosely represent the four seasons (winter, spring, summer and fall), the four points of the compass (north, south, east and west) and the four elements (fire, water, air and earth).  These are the forces that act upon and shape both the natural and manmade world.  These paintings will be left in the forests of Kuta, Keihoku, Kameoka and Miyama in northern Kyoto for four years.  Each season I will venture into the forest and document the changes.  In the spring of 2022 the pictures will be repatriated to civilization and an exhibition will be held.

My motivation for this project is in part a fervent belief that the most beautiful art made by the most talented artists is always somehow inferior to the creations of Nature.  The real beauty of the world is often just beyond our doorstep.

私は大自然と人間界との間で唐突的に生まれうるアートコラボレーションに感銘を受け続けて来ました。コンクリートの壁、雨によって色をつけられて行くトタン板、風や日光そして歳月。自然はアーティストが絵を描く為に必要とする絵の具やブラシなどを使わずして、ありふれた物を信じられないほど美しい姿に変えてしまう力があります。

きっとどこか侘び寂びの意に通ずるように、無の中に見いだされる清澄・閑寂、またそこから生まれるデザインや意図がピュアな形状であればあるほど私の興味が惹かれて行くように思います。10年、時には100年もの時間を掛けて生み出される大自然の芸術品、またはその過程に大変な憧れを抱いてきました。また、そのように絵を描きたいと長年思い続けてきました。もちろん、それは到底無理な願いなのですが。

しかし、25年以上ものあいだ絵を描いて来た今、遂に今回のプロジェクトで自然界と直接にコラボレーションをする事を決めました。私がこのプロジェクトのために描いた4つの作品をそのまま自然界へ解き放ち、その後は自然界が私の作品を最終点へ導くというバトンタッチ形式のコラボレーションです。これが今回のプロジェクト (four)est。

私がこのプロジェクトの為に既に用意した4つの作品には、四季（春夏秋冬）、四方（東西南北）、四元素（火、空気、水、土）が含まれています。これらの4つの作品を京都府下に属する4箇所（久多、京北、亀岡、美山）の山林の中に4年間放置します。各シーズン毎にその変化を記録し、2022年の春にはその4つの作品を持ち帰り、作品の展示に加え4年間で起こった変化や過程の工程なども含めたエキシビションを開催したいと思っています。

どれだけ優れた才能のアーティストが素晴らしい作品を作ったとしても、人工の美は自然の美に劣る、と言う確信がこのプロジェクトの動機になっています。自然の中に見られる真の美しさは我々の身近な所にもたくさんあります。玄関のドアを開ければきっとそこに自然の美を見ることができるでしょう。

January 2018 (Kyoto)

Bloom (花咲く)

Kyoto winters are very cold.  The days are short.  While the natural world slumbers we muddle through dreaming of spring.

Winter here is not completely colorless.  There is the vibrant pink of the camellia (椿) which blooms from December to February, the golden fruit on the leafless crabapple tree (カイドウズミ) in January, and of course the plum tree (梅) whose elegant pink and white flowers arrive in late February.

I have a few indoor plants in my little apartment, as well as a number of plants on my terrace - my would-be garden.  In four winters here I have never seen a flower.  Then suddenly about a week ago...a flower.  I bought a dendrobium orchid last summer for the bamboo basket I'd bought in a second-hand shop.  It grows in peat moss and I was told it required very little care.  So I gave it just that.  It didn't seem to grow or die.  I had actually grown bored of its inactivity.

I'm not sure why it decided to bloom now.  But I'm happy it did.  The lovely little white and faintly purple flowers, and subtle fragrance have brought spring a little closer.

Musing

The black of the winter night feels as if it will swallow you.  It is liquid and you are being absorbed.  The train slips through it, a bullet through ink.  Glass and fluorescent lighting attempt to repel the advance.  Interior and exterior are 50/50, the same information given and taken.

After Akashi the train clings to the coast.  The sea.  And nothing.  Direction - forward, backward, up, down - stops.  You are pulled right through the glass, and you must swim.  Enveloped in black.  It is possible to drown in this kind of black.

Mochi (餅)

If you thought that after nearly four years in this country I had become some kind of a quasi-Japan expert, well...read on.

Mochi is a glutinous rice cake and a staple of most New Year's celebrations in Japan.  Traditionally it is made from steamed rice that is beaten to a...well, not a pulp, but a sticky mass with a large wooden mallet.  This rhythmic pre-New Year ceremony called mochitsuki requires the labor of two people: one to swing the mallet and the other to turn the mochi and keep it moist.  Once it is smooth, it is torn into smaller pieces and usually shaped into bulbous discs.

I was given a rather large quantity of mochi by an acquaintance who had brought it from a remote temple on the Japan Sea in Ishikawa Prefecture.  I was of course grateful for the gift, but completely clueless as to what to do with it.  He said I could/should grill it.  As I have neither a grill nor an oven this was not an option.  But I thought, hey, improvise, put those old Parisian culinary skills to use.

I approached it as I would tofu.  This was my first mistake.  A block of coagulated soy milk is not even remotely the same as a glutinous rice cake.  After cutting the mochi into more manageable pieces I heated a pan with a scant amount of oil and tossed them in.  Hmm.  Mochi doesn't brown it melts.  Okay.  I added water to the pan.  This turned into glue.  Hmm.  Soup.  I'll make soup.  I added more water and some vegetables.  The mochi was not transitioning from solid to liquid with the heat and water; it was coagulating, becoming more gummy, more gloopy.  I poured it into a bowl.  It had the consistency of Murray's hair pomade.  I literally could have used it to plaster my walls, and I wondered it it hadn't maybe been used for this purpose once upon a time.

There is a mochi soup called zoni.  This was not that.  It didn't taste bad, but I did have an outside fear that my internal organs might adhere to one another, that I might literally gum up my works.  I wondered if I had any solvents on hand.  Mochi does in fact send hundreds of people to the hospital every year and choking deaths are not uncommon.

The lesson here is this...well, I don't know if there is a lesson, only that I still have a lot to learn about Japan. 

Wherever I lay my hat

Bing Crosby first sang "I'll Be Home for Christmas" in 1943.  

My annual pilgrimage to California for Christmas followed by the new year back in Japan always gets me thinking about "home".  What is it?  Where is it?  Is it where you were born?  Is it where you have spent the most time?  Is it where you are currently residing?  Or is it something more transient like the 1962 Marvin Gaye song, "Wherever I Lay My Hat (That's My Home)"?

I'm feeling more and more like a Kyoto-jin, a Kyotoite in English (I think).  Kyoto is a city of manageable scale and tempo.  827.8 km² (514 miles²).  1.475 million people.  There is space.  I can breathe.  I like it.  When I leave Kyoto, I miss it.

Three hours in Tokyo en route to Narita Airport and I'm vaguely annoyed and slightly bored.  I don't know this anymore, this kind of city.  I've lost my urban sense, my urban joy.  The hustle and bustle of the big city.  I was intoxicated by this as a young man.  Now it seems to be somehow pointless.  Tokyo is imposing, glamorous, fast and furious, but for what, why?  Where is it going, the people, where are they going at such a pace?  Everyone trying so hard.

It's not too difficult to find peace and quiet in Kyoto, especially this time of year.  And what is home, if not a place to find a little peace and quiet.

Momijigari

In the four short years since I came to Japan tourism has more than doubled, from 10.4 million visitors in 2013, to more than 24 million in 2016.  As of November this number has already been surpassed.  During the peak tourist seasons, in the spring for the sakura (cherry blossoms) and the autumn for the changing foliage, it does sometimes feel like tourists outnumber residents.

It has been some time since I made a concerted effort to view the maple trees and their deciduous comrades in autumn.  This is called momijigari.  With very loose plans I set out to see the color show at a couple of the more remote temples in Arashiyama.  This seemed to be a mistake from the moment I got off the train.  Arashiyama, around Togestukyo Bridge is always swarmed with tourists.  I have however successfully escaped this throng in the past.  Route 29, the main road on the north side of the bridge, was almost impassable, myself and hundreds of others literally walking in the street to overtake the slower moving gawkers.

The crowd thinned beyond the Sagano Line railroad tracks.  This was encouraging.  I thought, keep going, keep going until you are alone.  By the time I reached Sagatoriimoto in the foothills of the Atago Mountains there were just a handful of other people around.

There are two restaurants at the top of a hill where the charming Route 50 splits.  Both are named for the fresh Ayu fished from the nearby Hozu River.  I stopped for lunch at the one that appeared to be more modest in its pretensions - the 400-year-old Ayu no Yado Tsutaya.  I was shown the menu in advance, a tactful stratagem for shooing away dusty backpackers and budget tourists, then escorted to what I had hoped would be a private washitsu.

Alas, the lovely room with its immaculate tatami and gleaming black lacquer table was occupied by what I must describe as the stiffest, most uptight bi-racial couple I have ever encountered.  The gaijin was a middle-aged man with a neatly bald head and black mock-turtleneck sweater whose posture was impossibly straight.  The Nihonjin (Japanese) was a spectacularly plain woman in glasses hovering on the younger side of the same age bracket.  They spoke in hushed tones as if sharing government secrets.  The pretence was palpable.  And my nice grilled Hamo (pike conger eel) lunch was all but ruined.

I left that disagreeable scene and drifted through the mountain-hugging back streets where some truly gorgeous homes proudly sit.  A wrong turn brought me to Giou-ji Temple and a large flag-following tour group.  This horde dissuaded me from lingering.  At the entrance to Takaguchi-dera nearby I was greeted by temple staff shouting angrily at a man taking photos outside the temple grounds.  The nerves of those working in the industry serving the above mentioned millions clearly fraying.  I quickly u-turned.

I headed east on a road that cut across open fields and farmland to Daikaku-ji Temple.  Built some 1200 years ago this expansive structure complete with a large pond 1 kilometre in circumference was originally the detached palace of Emperor Saga (785-842).  It was converted to a temple in 876.  There is a network of buildings connected by squeaking covered walkways.  Slippers are provided at the entrance which makes stepping into the various rooms easy, but becomes humorously problematic when you discover your slippers are gone when you step out.

The shortened days mean the tourist groups abandon their missions early.  Walking back to the train through the town the earlier bustling streets were now pleasantly muted, the autumn palette of the Arashiyama hills a deeper, more moody hue.  My serene momijigari - found at last.

Autumn color in Arashiyama