Japan: Day 10b

 We visit another Art island. Naoshima

Follow the guide as she names instillations and what the artist meant.
We nod photograph and follow her to the next one. Our brains spend so much time registering basic info about an instillation they have no time to react emotionally.
Next instillation…

Instillation of a pumpkin reminds me of the Big Banana the Big Potato. Over here our big things dotting the country would be called instillations and modern art.
? Separate art from its community.  Monastery. The artist over there doing his art. When we retire we will go and enjoy their art. Go and get art. A wealthy man decided to build his gallery on this small sparsely populated island. In Tas such an island would have been made a national park. Native indigenous plants and animals. Fun via swimming, walking and enjoying native bush.

I find art in nature. I find God in nature.

I love wandering around my local area turning the corner and being surprised and excited by a new installation. An instillation that invites me to look at something nearby differently. 

On this island there is no joyous surprise. No sudden stumbling. The art has all been randomly scattered over the island. You expect another instillation.

Japan: Day 10

Today we hop on a ferry and visit Teshima. The Island was originally used to dump waste. The Island was reborn through art.

We are presented with a concrete monolith with two holes in the roof and small holes in the floor leaking water.
Windows in the roof highlight native tree birds. More aware of nature when glimpse a slice of it. Hear birds. Glorious. Unexpected. Not natural.   

The building changes with time of day and weather
Tourist: An amazing immersive experience about birth and life change.
Guide: I don’t tell people what to expect. They must experience it for themselves.

The building is an amazing engineering achievement on this Island. They had to know all. There is a great big thick book of all the physics involved.

I don’t see the building as a work of art.

Art should be enjoyable. Sound good. Look good. In tune with basic laws.

No photos allowed inside. Photos are allowed of numerous instillations we encounter.


 

Japan: Day 9

Bizen:  Main street is pottery shops. Pottery is unglazed. Natural earth colour. All jugs are different in the same way.

 

Guide: Shinto says there is a God in everything. A God in the kiln. Worship the kiln. Make the God in the kiln happy by firing the kiln. Heat makes the God happy.

Listen to the clay. It will tell you what it wants to be.

Shinto god in everything. Nature is full of typhoons, earthquakes must respect nature get close to it. Worship it.

Me: How do you worship the Gods?

Guide: If a tree is sacred you put a rope around it. Tell people it is sacred.

 

Potter: We had no firing for a year due covid. 

Me: Were the Gods unhappy?

Potter: The Gods were not unhappy.  We had a really good firing after.

We fire for 13 days straight. Keep adding wood. Pots remain in kiln. Natural colour. Colour varies depending position and clay. 

Potter: For 1000 years pottery made in this town. China was making pottery before this.

 

 

Japan: Day 8b

 

Adachi Museum of Art:

Guide: Every day the staff go out for an hour to check the garden and keep everything clean.
The garden designed to be seen through windows. Gardens with mountain backdrop framed by the windows. Not to enter. All plants rocks water arranged. Controlled. Planned. Not natural. Beautiful.

Founder of the museum: A garden is thought of as a living canvas.

I have learnt something about Japan. And now I know more about Tas. In Tas we worship nature wild natural and free. We fight against development that affects environment values that affects natural world. We assume man-made is bad.
Japan they can’t conceive of natural wilderness. Nature is to be bent shaped moulded until it is beautiful.

A cow is to be kept indoors until its meat is soft and tender. No free grazing. No natural browsing. No enjoyment.

Bonsai is deformed stunted trees with limbs held down or up until they look beautiful. The tree never fruits.  Not living a natural free happy in a sustainable environment. The caged tree exists as beautiful object. A fashion piece in a high-rise block of apartments.

Japan: Day 8

Museum of Photography: Sensational composed ad-lib photographs. The photographer spent his whole life in his hometown. Built a studio. Composed photography. All portraits composed. Not spontaneous or natural. Arranged. Planned. Beautiful. 

No photos of the composed photos so we have to create our own composed photos.

 

Japan: Day 7

 

Today we leave Kanazawa. Aboard a super-express train.

We stop at Okayama for a tour of Koraken Garden. Completed in 1700. Teahouses scattered throughout the garden built by successive rulers. The garden is designed in the scenic promenade style which gives visitors  a new view of the garden at every turn of the many paths which connect the lawns, ponds, hills, teahouses and streams.

We arrive at Kurashiki home of the Ohara Museum of Art. No photos.