catching the last summer sun

the last sunday of september and the summer has ended at last. yesterday, when i went up to kyoto with shion, my daughter who is staying with me at the moment, i admitted to that. as our climate had become mediterranean-ish in september, i was hoping it’d last longer than this. last wednesday was still sizzling. pity. it could’ve tanned my skin more brown.

no women (over thirty) in japan dares be sunning herself anymore, though. the uv rays are our worst enemy, obviously. in summer, many japanese women wear a pair of long black (sometimes white) gloves. like the pair of audrey hepburn in little black dress from “breakfast at the tiffany’s”? yes, almost. but they don’t cover whole fingers. wearing long black gloves seemed so weird to me the first summer since i’d returned from my exile: i had no clue to why they were wearing them in such heat.


the reason is because japanese women are extremely cautious about increasing in wrinkles and freckles. but, why black? the colour that absorbs the heat? they might be enjoying audrey’s image, as we have no place except for funerals to go in a little black dress, perhaps. athough i sill can’t adopt those long black gloves, i still tend to wear black more often than any other colours no matter when black is out of vogue. een in the heat, id wear black.

i recall that in the burning afternoon sun i was wearing all black from my toes to head, being soaked with perspiration after my visit to the ruins of solunto in santa flavia, sicilia, years ago. the roman remnants are located on the slope of monte catalfano. the view of capo zafferano from the hilltop was breathtaking. so it was worth the sweat. once conquering “the mountaintop”, i evacuated quickly, walking through vineyards and a fishing village, headinng back for my hotel, kafara, at sant’elia.

*

sicilia was lovely. it had been among my must-go on holiday destinations while living in london. late september looked possibly the best holiday season to me. as it happened, there were fewer holidaymakers and the cost was cheaper than its peak period, yet it was hot enough to enjoy a dip in the mediterranean sea. i never hesitated to get a fashionable tan after having a miserably wet english summer.

looking into the mirror now, i regret that a little bit, though. but if i had been overprotective from the sunlight, i couldn’t have had those blissful moments of feeling the sea breeze tickling my skin, not alone floating in the crystal clear water of sant’elia, the village, located some 20km east of palermo, is used to be the country retreat of the aristocracy. after several days of exploring the neighbourhood, i felt like seeing some modern part of sicilia.

one day, i got on a local bus to palermo. taking local transport is always fun and i love watching what their everyday life is like. however, returning from palermo felt much longer and bus drivers didn’t understand english. i got worried whether it was a right bus for sant’elia or not. in fact, the bus route was slightly different from the palermo-bound. luckily, there was a high school girl who spoke english. she and i were the last passengers as the bus approached sant’elia. when i got off the bus, she showed me the way back to my hotel in the dark.

*

next day, i joined the-shared-taxi-rides to cefalù with other fellow british holidaymakers on the same package holiday. in cefalù i challenged the steep climb to the ruins of tempio di diana along with three other youngish guys, while the majority of us enjoyed cafés and shops. the whole site of the ruins was not that impressive, actually. but again, the cast view from la rocca (the massive crag) was quite something. the sunny skies and the blue sea satiated my soul. what else would i need in sicilia?

bad extra melanin in my skin cells was active this september too, but i just couldn’t miss this best season for being in the sun, reliving my mediterranean experiences.

kanjiro kawai 河井寛次郎

louie, my son, was here and stayed overnight a few weeks ago when he came to osaka on his business trip. as he’s tokyo based, it’d been more than a year since i last saw him. but 2 years ago, he stayed with me at every weekend while taking 2 month job training at his company’s head quarters in osaka. so one of saturdays we were together, we visited my father’s grave in kyoto (it’s a september must-do for buddhists) and the kanjiro kawai museum 河井寛次郎 記念館 in gojozaka 五条坂 after that.
*

the much admired potter, late kanjiro kawai’s home with workshop is now a private museum and run by his granddaughter. the neighbourhood used to be a popular place for local potters to set up their kilns. in the museum premises you can see his unusual kilns and wood house that he designed himself. it was a quiet place and made us relaxed. louie really liked it there. i, as his mother, felt glad at the fact that we could actually have the same taste.

*

kanjiro kawai was one of the key figures of the mingei (folk art and crafts) movement 民芸運動 that occurred in the late 20’s and 30’s of the 20th century. i guess you’ve heard of sori yanagi柳宗理or seen his butterfly stool, which has become a mid-century design collector’s item. his father, soetsu yanagi 柳宗悦 was the aesthetician and philosopher who led the movement along with kanjiro kawai and another potter shoji hamada 浜田庄司 who worked with the british potter, bernard leach.

*

soetsu yanagi along with the fellowmen coined the term, mingei 民芸 (art of handcrafts that are characteristically produced in the regions) and the mingei movement aimed at winning people’s recognition for the beauty of everyday objects made by unknown craftsmen. sounds familiar? yes, it was influenced by the arts and crafts movement occurring in the last years of 19th century and the early years of the 20th century in britain (and america? which i know little). needless to say, those particular years were so inspirational and exceptionally vibrant with new ideas as well as aesthetic practices around the world.

*

interestingly enough, the period of the mingei movement is roughly the same time as bauhaus operated in germany. all those british, german and japanese mentors had a same concept: combining crafts and arts. they all had a sense of mission that was to seek an aesthetic value in something functional, utilitarian and mass-used. if i was allowed to have the cheek, i'd conclude that their attempts were all about “lifestyle”, since each of them promoted not only things but positive attitudes towards the quality of life, as it were.

*

if you visited the kanjiro kawai museum, you’d see how he fulfilled his desire for work and domestic life, and then you’d get the picture. kanji kawai did not sign his work, by the way. he said “my work itself is my signature.” my hypothesis is that it was out of his resistance to elitism: something like tea bowls were made and signed by some elite potters only for exclusive people? i presume that he was too modest to consider himself an artist.

*

unlike bauhaus design, mingei never looks sleek or cool. maybe because japan was still in a transition and pre-industrial period at the time, so the term and even concept of “design” was not adopted yet. maybe because we have the traditional (kind of zen?) aesthetics of appreciating the imperfectness, a beautiful but slightly misshapen plate, for example (i’m not talking about quality of commodities as seconds, though). in this sense, the beauty of irregularity is among soetsu yanagi’s discoveries in the mingei movement.

*

from his prize-awarded vase to a pebble at the kanji kawai museum you will find the warmth of humanity that is also one of indispensable characteristics for the mingei movement. and its spirit lives on! ... i hope.

mid september mid week art special

“global financial crisis” is the headline for almost all the newspapers around the world this week, as one of the big american money towers has collapsed and another been pillared. in this global-scale financial turmoil, who can read the future now? meanwhile, there is one more headline that has caught my eye this week. it’s been seen in european and american newspapers, which presents such a contrast to the darkest news of the world finacial markets.
*

the news is also on money, though, it’s bright one. it is about damien. that damien "shark + tank + hirst". sotheby's has made a record sale for his artworks in london despite the crisis. it is a lucky thing for the yba giant that he’s still got big fans. rich big fans. but how and where do they have the money while everyone else is losing it?

*

at goldsimiths college, damien hirst was taught by the professor, michael craig-martin who forced the world to call his artwork, which consists of a plain glass of water on a shelf, “an oak tree” in the same way as marcel duchamp did 9 decades ago. it might sound familiar to you if you reminded of the children’s story “the emperor’s new clothes”. i’m sure you’d feel ridiculed. artists are always dead serious (rather, seriously mischievous), however. damien hirst always loves to render that kind of extraordinary dark playfulness.

*

like his artwork, his auction was never ordinary this time. that’s why this auction attracted the media this much. he is bona fide iconoclast and polemicist, you know. apparently, he dislikes the conventional system of “art dealing” via commercial galleries. when he was an art student, he organised a group show for his fellow ybas and himself at a derelict warehouse, so it must’ve been a piece of cake for him to organise the solo auction at sotheby’s with no help from his dealers.

*

*

a few years later the yba caught the international notice, i studied fine art curating at goldsmiths. i learned the system how artists could find patrons such as collectors and museums, or governments. any artist needs money to produce an artwork. but the problem was, i found myself never having interest nor talent in selling art. i could not sell an artwork like a car. this is my old problem, really. i appeared to have no interest whatsoever in selling any commodities.

i just wonder if there were no funky galleries such as white cube and gagosian to show their work, where would collectors find it outside the museums? that would be very disappointing for gallery-goers, too.

*

one art critic envisages damien’s attempt at sotheby’s would be one-off. i don’t know. surviving the relationship between artists, dealers and collectors can be applied to the financial market. we all look for something to materially satisfy us. after all, buying art is about possession (better to call it ownership?) with a touch of dream, fantasy, or whatever. wanting either art or money offers us a game.

yes, contemporary art is a game, as it were. so why not play? but i always preferred games with no direct money talk involved. i enjoyed the student shows at the end of the academic year that leading art dealers, curators and some renowned artists came along. i saw my postmodernism teacher, sarat maharaj, guiding the british pop art master, richard hamilton and even had a chance to exchange a few words with him. in september soon after i completed my ma curatorship course, i visited documenta x, the 10th international contemporary art event, which was inaugurated in 1955 and takes place on a vast scale in kassel for 100 days every 5 years.

*

my train journey from frankfurt was a heaven on earth in comparison with the british railway service. every exhibition put on view was exhilarating. i liked documenta because it was less commercial, less glamorous than la biennale di venezia (i've never been to, though). i visited kassel again for the 11th five years later when i was basing back in london. by the way, you might have a neurotic image for contemporary art. but this art lovers’ playground cannot be suitable for fragile arty people. in fact quite the opposite, spectators must be fit enough to walk a long distance between venues.

*

my life goes on without contemporary art in osaka. i hardly visit an art museum, let alone commercial galleries these days. it’s because, both mentally and physically, i am situated a bit too far from the bright lights now, living in a suburb where my kind of art game doesn’t exits at all. yet, i love browsing news about good ol’ ybas on the net. if there was no such art, this world would be too sterile, wouldn't it?

*

septembers to remember

it’s been brilliant. i mean the weather. summer is not ending here in the far east yet. our september resembles almost mediterranean’s i always long for. much as i feel sorry for my friends in england where summertime is too short (or rather, around only sometimes?), we japanese deserve this long late summer to make up for the unbearable last two months, don’t we.
*
i love this season and the word “september” itself. sound-wise, it makes me feel sentimental. it is now inevitably associated with the tragedy of “september 11”, though. in buenos aires, there is a blue bottled white wine named “septembre”. i used to buy one. i distinctly remember the september of 2004 that i flew back to england from argentina: i jumped into summer from winter.
*
my porteño life had a wrong start in early may. mr dreamer, who brought me there and was supposed to show me a new aspect of life, could not change his louche lifestyle. i’d already decided to leave him, but he fell ill; i needed to look after him for some two months. then, when he made a recovery i couldn’t leave him alone in buenos aires since he had no money, even one peso, in his pocket. i know he had a half sister and half brothers in germany and canada, still, no real family to rely on. he eventually admitted having no savings, no assets or no concrete plans to make a living. his vintage car and a false hope were all he had. i took him back to england.
*

another reason i flew back to england, not to japan directly, was my personal stuff i’d left with jonathan, mr dreamer’s close friend, in berkshire; jonathan had offered me some space in his grand residence to store it. mr dreamer also had left his car there, so we went to berkshire first, telling jonathan i would arrange my stuff to be shipped shortly. mr dreamer picked up his little black mg from jonathan’s garage and we drove together up to london where his another long-time friend byron lived. we had no home or base in london any longer, but we needed a place and a little time to sort things out.
*
they once worked together: byron was art director of a high brow art and fashion magazine that mr dreamer sponsored as publisher. the prominent pop artist allen jones did the cover. subsequently, byron became a successful photographer, especially for erotic ones. we’d met before in london. i noticed his liking for styling himself as a lanky grey-haired rocker. just like his eccentric looks, his mysterious victorian house intrigued me. it was decorated in elaborate eclectic taste: william morris wallpaper for the quest room; a huge bath room and grapevines bearing fruits in his tiny conservatory. anyway, byron put us up. and his limits came a few days later. he was well-accustomed to enjoy his own company, so he kindly removed us from his london home to his country cottage in yoxford, suffolk.

*

i’d never been to suffolk before. as we headed north-east, classically bucolic scenery appeared in front of the car. i was thrilled at my stay in the countryside as much as i fretted about my future. we reached byron’s idyllic cottage. with honeysuckles around the gate over the meadow, it looked like a fairlytale. indeed, it was such a lovely retreat. during our week-long occupation, i’d be basking in the september sun, listening to twitters from nearby woods and looking up at the constellations and the milky way in the pitch black sky to make the most of the last days of summer.
* in retrospect, i think i was waiting for mr dreamer and myself to come out with something. something like a nicer comma at least? otherwise, a decent full stop between us. time got us nowhere after all. to mr dreamer’s credit, he was always very compassionate, generous, brave and tough, but he was hopelessly iffy about his own life when it came to honesty. he couldn't face the reality. so he went on drinking again until he emptied byron’s wine cupboard, only looking back on the vagaries of life. sure enough, it was high time for both of us to move on. that september swept me back to japan in the end.
*

september comes and goes every year. i can’t remember them all. meanwhile, i’m pretty busy remembering all the birthdays of my daughter, my mother and my best girlfriends…phew! there are so many birthday girls in september somehow. *

les gitanes

paris sets people craving for romance. it is an enchanted city where many people fall in love with someone. i didn’t fall in love with anyone in paris, though. instead, i fell in love with paris. it happened to me when an old photography book, entitled “the city of arts”, became mine. i found it in a pile of unwanted stuff in my grand mother’s house that was to be pulled down and rebuilt. i still keep the book even now, which is the oldest book ever i’ve kept in my life and has begun to fall apart little by little.
*

while paris was a great charmer to a teenage girl, it was one-way love for her. gradually, paris seemed a world away, sort of beyond my reach, and i gave up french lessons (well, due to my laziness) at an art college in tokyo i went. years later, i prepared myself for the moment of truth when i made enough money to jet off to my unseen lover. i was twenty-four: married with a little son, but still the girl who dreamed about paris, after all. i was out to be embraced by my lover i’d only known from books and films at last. as you can imagine i was happiest when my dream came true.

*

paris looked passionate about winning my love, but sometimes less passionate, even aloof. no matter how paris remained, my love affair continued…off and on. so i‘ve visited paris many times since then. but, to be honest, i don’t particularly like it there in summer when paris’s heart is just not there because parisians only think of their vacances. that'd make me feel rather left out, even though i could be just an “éntangère”. having said that, my paris tips in summer time always turned out as enjoyable as i'd hoped: one was solo and another in the company of my kids. i just wonder when i last visited paris -- ah, actually, it was early september five years ago when i was on magazine assignment.

*

paris looked passionate about winning my love, but sometimes less passionate, even aloof. no matter how paris remained, my love affair continued…off and on. so i‘ve visited paris many times since then. but, to be honest, i don’t particularly like it there in summer when paris’s heart is just not there because parisians only think of their vacances. that'd make me feel rather left out, even though i could be just an “éntangère”. having said that, my paris tips in summer time always turned out as enjoyable as i'd hoped: one was solo and another in the company of my kids. i just wonder when i last visited paris -- ah, actually, it was early september five years ago when i was on magazine assignment.

*

as the heat of summer has weakened at least in the evenings, balmy breezes take me back to those perfect evenings of parisien summer. but, it’s a little bit sad that i have no plan at all to see my long-time lover again.

*