I practiced copying the calligraphy my teacher left. In his opinion, “comprehensive beauty” should be found over harmonies, that is, harmony with nature and harmony among all people with a different individuality.
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師の遺した書の臨書です。先生によると、「綜合美」とは調和、すなわち、自然との調和やそれぞれに個性を持つ人々の調和上にあるものです。
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Writing haiku poems has been interesting me for some time. Still, I really can’t do it well. Instead of writing haiku myself I found this one on the internet.
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俳句を自分で作りたいと思っていますが、うまくいきません。代わりにネットで見つけました。
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Outside the convenience store/
Is depth of the ocean/
Loud chirpings of the insects (of autumn)/
Translation and calligraphy by Chio/
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This phrase, “bush crickets at the door stridulate” may have missed its timing. However, in any case, I can’t tell what their chirping is like.
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この「キリギリスが戸に在る」は少しタイミングを外してしまったかもしれません。いずれにしても、私はキリギリスの鳴き声というのは分かりません。
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This best compliment for a calligrapher describing the movement of the arm with a brush came from a very important friend of mine I met in Poland about three years ago on the occasion of the calligraphy exhibit I was allowed to participate.
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書家の筆を持つ腕の動きを表現したこの最良の褒め言葉は、3年ほど前に参加させていただいたポーランドでの書展を機に知り合った大切な友人からいただいたものです。
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Osmanthus flowers are in full bloom here and there. We should be immensely enjoying their pleasant fragrance now. However, this year we usually wear face masks when going out, which seems to deprive us of this entertainment.
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My late mother used to say that she liked those trees because they were around without being too obvious until people notice them by the scent.
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あちらこちらで金木犀が満開になっています。それでいい匂いが立ち込めているはずなのですが、もったいないことにマスクをしているといつも程には折角のいい匂いがあまり感じられない気がします。
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「気がついたらそこでひっそりと香っている金木犀が好き」と亡母がよく言っていました。
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“Airy-fairy wave motion”
“Fresh breeze”
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I found these phrases in astrological websites. New moon in the libra; early this morning. Lots of fun events should happen.
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Creation should sale with the wind, as well.
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『軽やかな波動』
『新しい風』
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いくつかの占星術のサイトで見つけた言葉です。今朝未明の天秤座の新月。楽しいことがたくさん起こりそう。
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創造にも追い風。
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It is easy just say that we must not fear changes.
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However, in reality it is helplessly scary, but at the same time, I feel kind of excited imagining how I will undergo changes.
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変わっていかなければ、と思うばかりで、やっぱり怖い。でも変わるのは面白いかもしれない。
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Sometime ago, I had an impressive dream. In that dream, a number of horses were running energetically. It was a really pleasant dream. The weather was fine and the world was bright. And all the horses looked very happy.
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The horses were running down the Kawabata Street near my house, actually though.
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This phrase of the season is roughly allocated to mid-October. It means “chrysanthemums bloom”.
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Unfortunately, the flower is often associated with funerals these days in Japan. However, cultured people often say it has been considered to be a prestigious kind of flower.
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I don’t clean back of my house very often, but whenever I do I feel very refreshing.
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Raking the fallen leaves/
Still/
Finding last years of my life stimulating/
Translation and calligraphy by Chio
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For the first time in months, I paid a visit to the hospital my late mother used to go and see her doctor, just wondering how many times I took her there.
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Small handbag used/
For hospital visit has/
A fan for autumn use/
Translation and calligraphy by Chio
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“A flock of geese begin to fly in.”
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This phrase is allocated roughly to the first half of October.
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Flowers blooming in profusion of course mark the change of seasons, and on top of that, migrating birds both fly in and out also give the same effect to people’s minds and lives, I suppose.
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Both my first calligraphy teacher and my mother were born in the year of the dragon according to the Oriental Zodiac.
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And here is “dragon”, a result of my copying practice of the work by my first calligraphy teacher. I am afraid mine lacks dynamism that the original one innately possesses.
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“As light flows”.
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Somehow, I feel something fluid, so it flows but not just goes.
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I put small postcard size works into a large frame. Then, they don’t look like just postcards, oddly enough.
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I am now wondering how I could use this big frame in the prospective art events I am going to participate.
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I practiced calligraphy following the models by my teacher that he left many years ago.
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These are the same lines from a poem by Li Bai in two different writing styles.
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I just wonder how I managed to practice these difficult tasks when I was a high school student.
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Old memory
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I visited Chikubu Island in the northern part of Lake Biwa the other day.
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I had a very vague memory from my very early childhood that my parents took me there.
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However, this memory became even more obscure right after the boat docked at the port of the island’s entrance because the scenery was quite different from the one in my memory.
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Oh, reed warbler/
Lake water can’t/
Get out of the lake/
Translation and calligraphy by Chio
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This phrase means “water drains”. It is allocated roughly to the first part of October according to the solar terms.
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It describes the scene that farmers drain water from rice paddies in preparation for harvesting.
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These are examples of wonderful way of presenting calligraphic works on tanzaku, or elongated pieces of paper invented by my long-time, valued friend.
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You can also hang them using the little devices on the back side.
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They are “early, autumn, cool, evening” (right) and “gateway to great success” (left).
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Incidentally, the second character on the left one is a little unusual from the one most generally used nowadays, that is, the two right-left parts are put in reverse.
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The two characters, the modern type and this reversed type are considered to be the same character, irrelevant to the two parts’ positions. In other words, Chinese characters have more flexibility than most people would think. And I like this character in this unusual form.
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At the end of the month, there will be the second full moon of October.
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Against the full moon/
Game named/
Charade/
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Translation and calligraphy by Chio
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Another copying practice result
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“Getting in motion and unmoving”
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“Action and quietness”
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I only wish it were my original.
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We will be enjoying the first full moon in October in a couple of days.
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“Just like extracting metal by melting down minerals
And just like the moon getting out of the clouds
A sharp ray of light was seen”
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This phrase is one of the divided season phrases of the solar terms, allocated to the last few days of September and the few first days of October.
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It roughly means “insects and worms hide themselves under the soil and close the door to escape from the approaching cold”.
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Their will hibernate until Jingzhe, around March 6th.
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Here is another new result of my copying practice of a model by my first calligraphy teacher.
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“A face is a scenery and a book. Looks will never deceive.”
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A lady in my neighborhood is an enthusiastic handicrafts maker. I knew she did great embroideries.
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And recently, I found out she also made small goods out of colored, thick paper.
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She came to my booth at Kyoto Art Craft Market and chose one postcard with my calligraphy of 星 or “star” in both modern (dark ink) and ancient (pale ink) forms.
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At that time, I didn’t know what she was going to do with it but the other day she showed her handmade frame with my postcard in it.
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I was very happy because it was the very first time to see my calligraphic piece be actually used by someone.
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I wrote two characters meaning “number, figure, arithmetic or mathematics” and “beauty or beautiful”.
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Here I hoped to express “beautiful mathematics” or “mathematics is beautiful” in my manner.
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For, working for mathematicians greatly expanded and enriched my world and I have always been deeply grateful to them.
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Today marks the last day of this year’s autumnal equinoctial week.
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During vernal and autumnal equinoctial weeks, Japanese people customarily visit their family graves, clean them and present offerings.
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However, I haven’t given much thought to that.
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Now, I have learned that in Buddhist thinking, during these weeks the distance between the land of the living and that of the dead becomes smallest.
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Photographs of my late parents/
Look young/
Autumnal equinoctial week/
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Translation and calligraphy by Chio
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“Thunder now stops” is the symbolic phrase of this season, that is, around the beginning of the second half of September.
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After years of brooding about how I could be more original and wildest in the best sense, breaking loose from my own routine kind of calligraphy, somehow quite recently, I realized that being myself and performing just naturally could create my best calligraphy.
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“(Wishing for) the beauty and the valuableness of being ordinary.”
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Now, I am looking forward to seeing myself grow and improve as a calligrapher.
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This is what I learned recently, taking a cue from someone’s behavior.
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“You must not make any remarks on anything you are ignorant of.”
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This is my copying practice of the work of my first calligraphy teacher’s wife who was a great calligrapher just as her husband was.
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Moreover, she was a perfect mentor for me who I still adore.
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For, she had this marvelous ability to see into the nature as a human of all the people she knew even when these people weren’t in her visible range.
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I really think this ability is remarkable because some people just don’t understand me even though I have been around and often talked with them.
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These two consecutive weekends I attended two different
marchés.
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One is a monthly event and smaller in size.
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The other is much bigger and originally held semiannually.
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I enjoyed both events; different sizes, different locations, different systems, different kinds of visitors.
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In other words, I had a valuable experience this September.
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The photo shows a small part of my booth at the marché.
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These “light” and “laugh or smile” don’t disclose their entire bodies but they hide some parts with pieces of thinner paper.
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I did this following someone’s hint for creating something new.
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Unfortunately, maybe because of the weather wasn’t very good, we had only a few visitors.
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I hope more people will come to the venue to enjoy this fun, art event. It will be open tomorrow (Saturday) and the day after tomorrow (Sunday).
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Here is more information about this fun event. The venue is here and the period is till Sunday September 20th.
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Tonight’s moon is the Virgoan new moon. I hope something drastically new happens.
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Another character means “sky, vault of heaven, eternal time” and what not.
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The other day I wrote about my copying practice years ago.
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Here is another similar one, which I must have done around the same time as the former one for my first solo exhibition at the beginning of 2009.
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The photo shows my new copying practice of the model that my first teacher left for me.
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I am afraid I could do better. For, I got too nervous here.
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It is a pleasure for me to announce that I was allowed to participate in this event.
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I hope many people interested in Japanese style calligraphy will come to the venue during the period from Friday, September 18th to Sunday, September 20.
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Today was the Day 2 of the big event, the Kyoto Art Craft Market.
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The event’s venue was in an old building, which was the former Bank of Japan Kyoto Branch.
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Through this event, I had many new and fresh experiences, meeting and talking with new people and learning many new things about turning your favorite pastime into business.
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I am more than happy to have participated in it and profoundly grateful to all the people that helped me do things well in the event.
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It was the Day 1 of the big event, the Kyoto Art Craft Market.
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A lady from the office of this event said, “If you use this “face shield” with your glasses, the whole world would instantly become foggy” and soon it turned out that she was quite right.
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At the end of today, I got very exhausted because of the severe lingering heat, strong sunshine and humidity. Still, I had such a good time meeting and talking with many people at the venue.
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Now, I am looking forward to experiencing more fun there tomorrow!
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This is the official enumeration of commemorative gifts from my grandfather on my mother’s side to my grandfather on my father’s side on the occasion of my parents’ engagement.
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I found this when cleaning and getting rid of unnecessary household goods.
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As I thought my grandpa’s calligraphy was pretty good, I asked my paperer to frame it into a scroll.
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The photo shows my new works on Tanzaku or narrow strips of paper for calligraphy.
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I hope they will be loved at the venue of this big event.
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I tried some of the same motifs as before on wood.
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Paper, wood, cloth; they are very attractive as bases for calligraphic pieces.
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This small, old piece of paper is an offcut of the paper for the sliding doors in Japanese houses.
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I remember my mother pasting new sheets of paper on all the sliding doors in the house before the New Year Holidays. And seeing her do that, I used to imagine myself doing the same thing as a grown-up woman.
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However, in the first place, there are no sliding doors left in my house now.
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Autumn butterfly/
Went inside the/
Four-o’clock flowers/
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Translation and calligraphy by Chio
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In November 2017, by good fortune I was allowed to participate in an exhibition by three calligraphers from Poland and Japan.
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At its pre-event gathering, luckily, I had a chance to perform calligraphy in front of many people, which was the best occasion in my life as a calligrapher.
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After my performance, someone told me that the movement of my arm with the brush was like something flowing on water.
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When I told my present teacher about this comment after returning to Kyoto, she said I should have been more courteous and expressed the politest thanks to that person. For, according to her, “the arm movement in calligraphy is like flowing on water or dancing in the air” is definitely the best compliment to a calligrapher.
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You will find these works at the “Kyoto Art Craft Market 2020 Autumn”.
I am very happy to be allowed to participate in it and I do hope many people with interest in Japanese style calligraphy will drop by.
<Below is the repost of the August 29 entry>
Delightful announcement
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Kyoto Art Craft Market 2020 Autumn
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http://kacm.jp/pdf/kacm2020_autumun.pdf
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It is such a pleasure and honor for me to participate in this great event to be held on September 12 and 13 at Kyoto Cultural Foundation <http://www.bunpaku.or.jp>, <http://www.bunpaku.or.jp/en/>.
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My booth is “E2” that is facing Sanjo Street, one of the pedestrians’ favorite streets in Kyoto. I would be very happy and excited if many people would walk on this street and take a look at my calligraphic works in my booth and hopefully be interested in my calligraphy.
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Outline of this event follows below.
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<Date and time>
September 12th; 11:00 – 17:30
September 13th; 11:00 – 17:00
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<Venue>
京都府京都文化博物館
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<Detailed information>
http://kacm.jp/pdf/kacm2020_autumun.pdf
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This photo shows a new result of copying practice of my teacher’s model that he wrote for me decades ago.
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And as always, I renewed gratefulness to both my teacher and parents.
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Thanks to them, I have established basic skill, technique and knowledge of calligraphy.
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Someone praised me for making efforts at one thing for many years. However, that was not my efforts but my fortune to have met a good teacher and generous parents.
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This phrase is from the solar terms and one of the subdivided one, allocated loosely to the first week of September.
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It roughly means “rice ripens”.
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As I am quite ignorant about rice cultivation, I at first wondered if it was already the season of rice ripening.
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Then yesterday, I found a post by my new acquaintance in the artistic society, saying she and her family had harvested this year’s rice.
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These are my new pieces on fan shaped thick sheets of paper.
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Fan shaped things have a graceful image and they imply auspiciousness, as well.
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They are “as light flows”, “I am thinking of you” and “what I think of is you”.
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I think that these two are the main features that make up various aspects of people’s lives, that is, culture, tradition, prospects for the future, personal beliefs and emotions; and everything.
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