day 3 japan

woke early to warm temperature, but a greyer sky.
halloween - but not here - no observance.
first stop - the ocean - back floating - under a grey morning sky - no waves to contend with just effortless floating and letting the rhythm of the ocean carry me.
while the tears streamed down my temples.

tears of true joy.
floating - floating - breathing.

no one in the water but me.

wow.

breakfast served in a large wood bungalow adjacent to our building - facing the ocean - low benches - very large low table - cushions and lots of fresh air and light.

EXCELLENT coffee with cream - potato soup - yes soup for breakfast - 2 small fresh dinner roll type buns - butter - marmalade - sliced pealed dragon fruit and mandarin orange.

lovely young god woman with more of a tibetan face inn keeper serving us with light beaming out of her otherworldly face - the bungalow double wide doors wide open to the morning rain and breeze.

then off to an amazing dye facility where we spent all day dyeing all the pieces for the 2nd floor marketplace for the show - including a dress that i had made out of mom's cotton kitchen clothes.
a very specialized process - dorozome or 'mud dye' - achieved through many very specific stages.
a hand made steel cage - the size of a cement mixer - full of local hard wood chips that are burnt down to ash and cooked into a mulch - this mixes with an iron & steel rich volcanic soil that creates a very fine mud in a pond outside the dye studio.

hard to explain - but a series of metal vats and huge ladles and gentle dipping massaging & squeezing - soak after soak - yields a wide range of browns to greys and blue also if the aisome or indigo dye is added.

it was pouring rain at the dye studio and we were working away with windows and doors wide open.

more of the same tomorrow and then we are off to Kagoshima to see Shin's hometown, the volcanoe and an arts festival - spend one night there - all before flying back to Tokyo to get the show up in 2.5 days !

tonight i swam alone in the rain.
aaaaahmazing.
shallow for a very long way out - white sandy bottom - and plenty of salt in the water to make back-floating totally effortless.
i have not spent this much time in the ocean since i was 28 living in the British Virgin Islands !

then drove for miles in the dark and pouring rain for a VERY local - very traditional Amami supper of EVERY fish imaginable.

home now writing this snapshot of our day.

oh & before i hit the sack we toured a little at lunch time and saw thousands of the prehistoric trees called cycad trees.
a brutal - stout - graphic palm like tree.
all you can think of is dinosaurs when you see them.
they are gorgeous !


love what i am being exposed to - such a HUGE privilege,
love to all my family back home, chi

I am on my gorgeous tiny island now after a "beyond chalk full" first day in Tokyo !

Words cannot express just how beautiful it is in Amami Oshima ! !

WHOA !

White coral everywhere !
My room is on the beach with a balcony and a vast, endless ocean view.

This little inn is so precious - with a capacity of only 6 ( :
Rustic.
Everything so spare and gorgeous.
Shin Nakahara, my gracious gallerist and new friend, arranged for all of this.
We share a large suite with a central room and then our private rooms forking off from there.
We are the 3 main contributors to the show:
Ruth
Matt
Llane
& Shin
Here.

The first thing we did was frolic in the water !
Indigo blue, really a deep gorgeous blue.

With white coral everywhere on the beach !

Very pooped, but can hear the steady back and forth of the waves a stones throw away, with a very distant horizon towards my California coast.


It's been a long wonder full day !
Jet lagged and must sleep.


Love this amazing country very much,
Nitey nite,
chi

i am in japan !
day 1:
the gallery is epic.
made me think of lower east side - 1980's some friend's art opening - wabi wonderful.
- painted over pipes, funky architecture, great neighborhood vibe - NOT FANCY - soulful and my idea of perfect.

it's llane's midcentury silk & linen braided stools and my sea of sculpture in there.
the curator's cube gallery is cozy, but the tall sliding glass windows that march across the entire face of the building open up the sense of space out onto the sidewalk.

there's a tiny tight stair case at the back of the gallery that leads up to the well lit marketplace space where matt will create his store of kurta's, incense, ceramics & my talismen pieces.
i am so excited for the mix of stuff he has pulled from many artists - "i'd shop there" !
above the marketplace is the gallery's enchanted 3rd story studio apartment, with more of the same soulful flavor and light, then up again to an office and a make shift bar......

it meanders and charms.

the opening reception will have folks winding up & down from "story to story".

it's gonna be a lot of work to set up & a lot of fun - that all begins next tuesday.

the support crew that was there to greet me mid day today - all work for landscape products & they are ALL BROS !

Kata,Yo, Kenji & Tatsuya.

they were painting all matt's fixturing, wrapping up the SF General Store show & awaiting our arrival and planning session.

we went straight to Tokyu Hands for all the gear we need to get this show "off of the ground".

Tokyu Hands is 13 stories of what they call a 'Creative Life Store'.

it was a wonderland of every conceivable tool, art supplies, dime store notions, packaging materials, leather craft stuff, fabrics, masks - a dream depot for folks that DO shit.

 

i have landed in a very magical place and in the inspired and capable hands of Shin Nakahara.

off to the airport tomorrow 8am to 2 climb aboard 2 planes to ultimately arrive at Amami Oshima where we will beach comb & dye goods for the party at an historic dye compound specializing in indigo & mud dye.

there's 2 nights there & then 2 nights in Kagoshima, Shin's birthplace, with a very active puffing volcano and an ebonized kind of driftwood that is supposed to perhaps yield another piece for the show - if time allows me to assemble something new........we will see.

so jet lagged, so turned on by all this,
loving the journey and the adventure of it all,

love to you !

chi

hello out there,
it has been a long time since i was on my blog.
life has been so full up that i forgot i even had a blog.
no kidding.

i am headed to Japan now for an exhibition of my sculpture.

the show is at Curator's Cube in Tokyo.

it runs 11/6 through 12/25.

i have always wanted a show in Japan.
i am thrilled and have worked very hard to share a special story in a very beautiful country, though i have never been there, i know that i will find it beautiful.

more soon.