teapot no. 31 & 32

Teapot no. 31, Jade wave teapot was inspired by the jade colored waves I saw at Asilomar on the weekend. 68 more to paint.

teapot no. 30

Teapot no. 30, another left-hand painting except for the tea cannister (don't have that much motor control in my left hand yet). **Yuki-chan: this is the hojicha you gave me--very yummy!

Ling's jacket

I have my friend Ling's bright red wool jacket from
Beijing hanging in my closet. On the chest area it has
an embroidered yellow and gold sunflower with some
brown and black threads in it. The sleeves and neck
are lined with a silky material patterned with a
design similar to the Buddhist endless knot. And, the
jacket is so warm! I am going to sew new sturdier button
loops on it for her--with red thread, of course.
I painted this picture of Ling's jacket last night before bed.

teapot no. 29, ugly pot?

I made teapot no. 29 last night entirely with my left hand; not an easy thing to do. I don't have as much control with my left hand, which is precisely my objective in doing these left-hand experiments. Watercoloring with my left hand is much easier than holding and using colored pencils because: 1) the brush and water feel more flexible and fluid in my hand and 2) it takes more control to maneuver a pencil.... or, does it? It also takes me longer to draw left-handed than right-handed and sometimes I want to change hands because my mind thinks it could do better right-handed. I didn't like the result of the colored pencil in teapot 29, so I watercolored over it--still using my left hand--and thought, how can I post such an ugly teapot in my teapots series?" But, when I began the 100 teapots, I made a rule that I would use the teapot I set out to draw or paint no matter what I thought of it. Besides tricking my brain by doing some of these paintings left-handed and/or without wearing my glasses, I am adhering to my rule to help me become less discriminatory and critical about my own work. What usually happens is that I am surprised when others respond favorably and even like the artwork that I reject. It happened today on Flickr. Already, two fellow artists have responded favorably to a piece of my work that I did not want to post.

Morning helpers

I snapped photos this morning of my messy desks (one's a drafting table and one's a low table) and some of my helper items, gifts from Tucson friends.

Bocha II

I learned the correct way to write the word for Tibetan tea in Tibetan from one of my library co-workers who is Tibetan (from the Tibetan community in Dharamsala, India). She could read and understand my first attempt to write the word, but because I wrote it in phonetics, it was a little strange. She showed me how it is really written. So, this morning I made myself a big hot bowl of Bocha, painted a new left-handed watercolor, and wrote the correct Tibetan word for it (below).

Biscuit portfolios

Yesterday, while shelf reading at the institute library (part of my little student job), Burton Watson’s Cold Mountain fell into my hands. I opened up a page at random and this is what I got:

10

Here we languish, a bunch of poor scholars,
Battered by extremes of hunger and cold.
Out of work, our only joy is poetry:
Scribble, scribble, we wear out our brains.
Who will read the works of such men?
On that point you can save your sighs.
We could inscribe our poems on biscuits
And the homeless dogs wouldn’t deign to nibble.

Cold Mountain: 100 Poems by the T’ang Poet Han-shan, translated by Burton Watson.

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Ha-ha-ha….pretty funny and synchronistic for me now while I am writing my portfolio. I'm having fun with my biscuit portfolio this time around, allowing other creative activities to help my process: drawing and painting, cycling, cooking and eating (is eating creative?, I think so….), taking long walks with Yuki, and lingering over little clay teapots of steaming tea. I know what needs to be done to finish and have my sight set on successful completion, while at the same time not attaching to the outcome.

Back at home, I opened my copy of The Collected Songs of Cold Mountain, Red Pine’s translation of Han Shan’s poetry, and searched for his rendering of the above poem (99 below).
Han-shan, aka Cold Mountain, is one of my favorite irreverent Taoist/Buddhist mountain hermit poets of the early or late 8th century (no one knows for sure). I like Burton Watson’s version (10) for the obvious humor in it, and Red Pine’s (99) for the subtle, yet equally humorous tone.

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99

Disappointed impoverished scholars
know the limits of hunger and cold
unemployed they like to write poems
scribbling away with the strength of their hearts
but who collects a nobody’s words
may as well save your sighs
write them down on rice-flour cakes
even mongrels won’t touch them

teapot no. 28, Priti Pot

Little green caterpillar was born atop the highest branch of a pine tree on Mt. Lemmon. In the caterpillar cosmos, the mountain was known as High Place above the Desert. Every evening, snug inside her pine cone home, little green caterpillar listened to the stars and watched the darkness. One night, while her neighbor crawled down to get a bite to eat from the nearby all-night aspen leaf taquería, little green caterpillar began to write a story. She wrote with pine sap ink in a pen she crafted herself from pine needles. To get herself going, she boiled up some of the pungent chapparal her cousin had carried up from the desert. She took a big whiff of it before placing it in the pot. This is the teapot she used--No. 28: chapparal pot, aka, greasewood and creosote--and this is the beginning of her story.

Dedicated to the memory of Priti, long-time desert dweller who lived among the chapparal.

teapot no. 27

for Thich Nhat Hanh

How many years of suffering
revealed in hands like his
small and deliberate as a child's

The way he raises them
from his lap, grasps the teacup
with sure, unhurried ease

Yet full of anticipation
for what he will taste in each sip
he drinks as if it's his first time

Lifts the cup to his mouth,
a man who's been practicing all his life,
each time tasting something new.

~ Amy Uyematsu ~

(Stone Bow Prayer)

teapot no. 26

Teapot no. 26, "Gratitude Pot"

Teapot no. 24 & 25

teapot no. 23

Teapot no. 23 is another left-hand experiment: sketched and painted with my non dominant writing/drawing hand. The line of mountains represent the San Francisco Peaks in Northern Arizona, my favorite mountains.

Watercolor on Arches cold pressed paper.

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Here's an excerpt from Dogen Zenji's Mountains and Waters Sutra.
Dogen (1200-1253) founded the Soto sect of Zen in Japan. Mountains and Waters Sutra is part of his major work, Treasury of the Eye of the True Dharma. This translation is by Arnold Kotler and Kazuaki Tanahashi.

There are mountains hidden in treasures. There are mountains hidden in swamps. There are mountains hidden in the sky. There are mountains hidden in mountains. There are mountains hidden in hiddenness. This is complete understanding.
An ancient buddha said, "Mountains are mountains, waters are waters." These words do not mean mountains are mountains; they mean mountains are mountains.
Therefore investigate mountains thoroughly. When you investigate mountains thoroughly, this is the work of the mountains.
Such mountains and waters of themselves become wise persons and sages.

*

Shirley at Pho King

My friend, Shirley, and I went to Pho King in Seaside last night for dinner. While we were waiting for our Pho to arrive, I took out my ball point pen and began doing a contour drawing on the white paper placemat. I see white paper, I draw.
At home, I colored it in with my colored pencils. The arc marks on her face are from my pho bowl.

I am inspired by Blue Cin who does wonderful drawings with a Bic pen.

teapot nos. 21 & 22

teapot no. 20: rainbow pot

This morning I decided to paint teapot no. 20 with my non dominant hand, my left hand, and without wearing my glasses.






80 more teapots to paint.

Going on a tea break

A long tea break...





















Be back soon.

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In the above photo, I am in the Japanese tea house at Green Gulch Zen Center in Muir Beach, Northern California. I am learning how to fold the tea napkin used in the Japanese tea ceremony.
In August, 2001, I attended the American School of Japanese Arts held at Green Gulch Zen Center. For eight full and exciting days, I practiced chanoyu (tea ceremony), bokugi (Japanese brush), shintaido (a new body/spirit exercise), and kyogen (comic theatre) with fifteen other students and our senseis.

We wore hakama (split leg kimono) and geta (wooden sandals) and slept in the beautiful guest house on the grounds of Green Gulch.

The entire ASJA program--daily lessons, the master teachers, the students, as well as the environment at the Zen Center--was amazing.

More ASJA photos to follow.

teapot nos. 18 & 19

teapot nos. 16 & 17

I got a new box of 64 Crayola crayons to create 'fake batik' drawings. Here are teapots 16 and 17, drawn with crayons and watercolor on cheap Walgreen's watercolor paper.

The practice of smiling

Yesterday, I took Yuki to the beach at Asilomar. It was cold and windy with a few clouds and some sunshine. Yuki got to run with the wind and sniff big piles of tangled seaweed where swarms of fleas hang out. I saw a pelican dive bomb straight down into the water for a fish. A pod of dolphins were out there, too, playing in the waves.
During this colder, grey time of year, thoughts of Tucson sunshine and blue skies creep in. I wonder how anyone can live in places where it is truly dark and dismal for many months on end. Here in Monterey, we'll have several days of rainy weather followed by a spectacularly sunshine-y day. My body likes sunshine.
So, these little nature trips to the beach with Yuki rouse my body with sea energy, a sunshine substitute. There, I watch Yuki running joyfully, I feel the cold snappy wind on my body, I look at waves, and notice sea otters enjoying this ocean world, despite the cold and grey. Seeing the sea otters play always brings a smile to my face.
And smiling, while breathing in and out, gently and naturally, relaxes my entire mind and body. Laughing and smiling--even consciously, as a practice--frees my mind and soothes my body. Simply playing and being aware (breathing in and out, not attaching to my thoughts) allows space for my inherent joy to surface. This inherent joy is my true nature.

Coloring

Here's the colored in version of the brush drawing I made yesterday. Colored with Lyra brand Rembrandt colored pencils.
















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I watched Spirited Away the other night for the 2nd time. Miyazaki Hayao's films remind me of watercolors; they're so beautiful with their layers of color. He draws all of his animations on story boards first. I also like the playfulness in the stories.
So far I have only seen Tonari no Totoro (My Neighbor Totoro), Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi (Spirited Away), and Majo no Takkyuubin (Kiki's Delivery Service), all in both English and Japanese. I usually show Totoro as part of the "Japanese Culture Through Art" classes that I teach. All the kids like the flying cat bus (neko-basu). Who wouldn't like to get on board a cat bus that flies over the trees?
Another favorite part is when the sisters, Mei and Satsuki, help to raise the huge tree. It's a magical sequence which shows the Japanese reverence for trees and for nature. There's so much in the film that can be used to explain Japanese culture and language.
I also enjoy showing Big Bird in Japan. Kids LOVE the One-Two-Three means ichi-ni-san song. Using this movie in ESL/ELD and bilingual classrooms, I have witnessed that playfulness of language encourages sound experimentation, imitation, and eagerness to learn more Japanese through the medium of English.

Morning sketch, January 14th

teapot no. 15

Here's teapot no. 15. It's actually a white teapot, but i chose to paint it pink. I don't know yet how to get white things to look white on white paper with watercolor. I'll just have to experiment. I read once that an ancient Chinese Zen monk-painter-poet was asked how one learns to paint bamboo. His answer was to look at bamboo for ten years. I've kept that saying inside of me as I walk around and look closely at things. Sometimes I have looked at a particular shadow on tree bark, at the colors of the southwestern sunset, or light on the mountains, and wondered how I could paint these things. The "answer" is to just look and wonder. Then, pick up the brush and paint the wonder that seeps in. It takes time and lots of walking and looking. There's no technique, really. It's all about seeing and becoming the thing that you are painting.

I'm a little teapot short and stout
Here is my handle, here is my spout..."

teapot no. 14

Yesterday I went to Walgreen's for a small calendar book. I found a small stack with a choice of two cover photos, a lighthouse or a floppy eared dog, for only $1. I took the lighthouse. At home, I made a new cover from construction paper, which you see here as teapot no. 14.

Morning sketch

This morning, my friend Christopher called me from Paris. We don't talk very often, and haven't seen each other for about 14 years now, yet our friendship is still so easy and warm. Only place (or space) separates us. Before Chris called, I was sitting on my floor sketching the above in a Moleskine Volante journal with my Kaimei brush pen. My intention was to do a quick sketch. I will need to shorten my art making time and lengthen my portfolio working time if I am ever to finish this MATESOL degree. Will I do it? This remains to be seen....

teapot no. 13

I painted this teapot with acrylic paints on 100 lb. Bristol paper.






Take a look at the growing set of 100 teapots.

teapot no. 12

teapot no. 11

Nengajo 年賀状

For a better, larger view, click your mouse over the picture.

teapot no. 10

teapots no. 8 & 9

Only ninety-one more to go!