Two months again and update stuffs...

Looks like another two months has slipped by me since the last update. A large amount of good stuff has been going on since the last post. Art has benn progressing and the projects are building up. In May I will be finally returning to Japan for a month! And on top of that I have landed a solo show in the Adirondacks for the summer of 2014. Yup it is a ways off but excellent all the same. All since the start of 2013.

The Blue Box has survived the storm this past two days. I don't think we'll be getting in the back door anytime this week. There is about four feet high of drift and about ten feet long past that. There is no chance I'll be shoveling out. But I suppose I should delve into some of the new work.

This is from a set of our. Each one measures about three foot by four foot. As most often they are screenprinted on muslin. The source idea for this set is the town of Nara in Japan. It is not hard to find deer wandering around near the temples; particularly Todaji Temple. Yes, that is an actual deer I snapped off in Nara on my last trip. The impetus for this set is different from other sets I have been working on over the last year.

 

The more obvious landscape features of previous flags is removed to a less abvious ground. The space becomes more flattened as well. The landscape is still referenced through the repettition of the maples leaves overprinted several times over in black and white. The Buddha like image was snapped somewhere in Nara. I know not where. None the less... the brain started functioning. What are these about? HA! I got it and early. When Buddhism moved into Japan it absorbed and did not wipe out the existing religion, Shinto. Instead it absorbed it and let it become a part of it. I am not interested in the theistic sides of this. More so, the idea that a set of values did not get wiped out but included. This is where my interest lies.

In the name of always moving forward in terms of how people think I do believe we have hit a stumbling block. I am interested in how the Buddhists picked up the Shinto practices and beliefs and how they moved forward. By letting one become another very interestings things happened in life and art and philosophy. This is where this set of prints is located. The merging of old ideas to bring forth new and innovative ones. The ability to accept them helped bring about a new term of life that prospered in arts and sciences. Yes I am sure it was rough and had many bumps in the road. These prints show the belief in people to move forward past our Cold War mentality at to think in terms of what happens next.

 

So this above pic is a woodblock I have been working on. It is in the first state. Many more to go before it is done. It is based on a Zen monk's writning. his name is Ryokn. He lived very simply for many years upon simplicity. the particular passage has to do with the complexity of big town life and that of simple country life. I have no answers as of yet but I will keep everyone posted.

Good night all.