Obsessions & Flea Markets

"Whether we call it collecting, scavenging, accumulating, scrounging, gathering, or junking, it's all about the urge to surround ourselves with our stuff, our loot, our stash, our hoard, our mother lode of treasures, and to reap the inspiration that these sometimes inexplicably irresistible objects provide." Lynne Perrella, from her book ART MAKING, COLLECTIONS & OBSESSIONS. This is a wonderful book which includes the collections and artwork of 35 wonderful artists. You can find out more about this book and how to acquire it here.

In Kyoto, on the 21st of every month, is the Kobo-san Market Fair held at To-ji Temple. On the 25th of every month, is the Tenjin-san Market, held at the Kitano Tenman-gu Shrine. These are considered among the biggest, best flea markets in Asia. They are both very colorful, festive, crowded and very, very large.... and quite simply -- FABULOUS!

We do love things that bear the marks of grime,
soot, and weather, and we love colors
and sheen that call to mind the past that
made them. ---Tanizaki Junichiro

Purity of Mind

Water dipper, Torei, 1721-1792, Ink on paper

After entering through the torii gates onto the temple grounds, the first thing one might see are the purification stone water basins, or tsukubai. This literally means 'stooping basin'. Many religions, including Shinto and Buddhism, require the ritual cleansing before one is allowed into a holy sanctuary. In Japan, this usually means pausing at a water basin and using a bamboo dipper to rinse the hands and mouth--to purify one's self before entering. These basins can take many forms, from a highly crafted bronze basin to an unworked boulder with a natural depression.

If a man's mind becomes pure, his surroundings will also become pure.
---Buddha

I also saw many of these stone water basins at the entrances to small homes and restaurants.
There seemed to be a quiet calmness- a pocket of serenity-- in these small areas. The basins were usually set in with large and small rocks, plants and sometimes moss.

Only in quiet waters do things mirror themselves undistorted.
Only in quiet mind is adequate perception of the world.
----Hans Margolius

Like water, we are truest to our nature in repose.
----Cyril Connolly

If you want inner peace find it in solitude, not speed, and if you would find yourself, look to the land from which you come and to which you go.
-----Stuart L. Udall

These small stone basins at the entrance of a home or restaurant represent the ritual of "clearing the dust of the world".
This symbolic act of cleaning thus enables one to sense the pure and sacred essence of things, man and nature. This purity, through the simple act of cleaning, is part of my search for myself in my art -- the act of clearing out the "old" ways to explore and experiment with new experiences, and feelings.

AWAKENINGS

Kyoto: Fushimi Inari Shrine

Entering it
You enter yourself:
The world connects
And closes like a ring.
---Octavio Paz

Want the change. Be inspired by the flame
Where everything shines as it disappears.
---Rainer Maria Rilke

And the countries, cities, gardens, the bays of seas

assigned to my brush came closer,

ready now to be described better than they were before.
----Czelsaw Milosz

At Nishiki Market, Kyoto

Torii are gateways at the entrance of Shinto shrines, or "jinja". They are typically made of wood, stone or sometimes, iron. Most wooden torii are painted in red. Torii literally means "where birds reside". It sometimes happens that Buddhist temples have a torii, too. The most amazing place to see torii gates is Kyoto's Fushimi Inari Taisha, where hundreds and hundreds of them are lined up in a tunnel-like fashion. The Inari shrine honors the Kami of rice. There you will also find fox statues as they are the messengers of Inari.
I felt that these torii gates were my first "welcome" to another world. These gates are the division between the physical and spiritual worlds. When I stepped under the gates into the temple grounds, a feeling of renewal come over me.
Odds are you could
Find yourself
Here in this passage between
Moonlight
And dawn,
Seeing change
Move
Through the backwater eddies
And the mainstream flows
Of the world around you---
Thinking through
Choice
And chance,
About things
That have already been
And
Might yet be.
-----Unknown

Sayonara! Kyoto Dreaming

Title: Chado (tea ceremony), acrylic, rice papers, 2008

some of my bonsai collection

Pour yourself like a fountain.

Flow into the knowledge that

what you are seeking

Finishes at the start, and with ending,

begins.--- Rainer Maria Rilke

Without my journey,
And without the spring,
I would have missed this dawn.
-----Shiki

"We plan our lives according to a dream that came to us in our childhood, and we find that life alters our plans. And yet, at the end, from a rare height, we also see that our dream was our fate. It's just that providence had other ideas as to how we would get there. Destiny plans a different route, or turns the dream around, as if it were a riddle, and fulfills the dream in ways we couldn't have expected." ----Ben Okri

Actually, I absconded with this quote from Robyn at Artpropelled. She has a wonderful blog which you can find here.
This quote is a perfect way to express my dream of traveling to Japan. I have had this dream for many years. I remember back in 1999-2000, when my son was in high school, I talked him into taking Japanese as a second language. My plan was that he would become my guide and interpreter when we traveled to Japan. Well, he graduated in 2000 and we never traveled to Japan. Every year I would talk about going to Japan. Every year. Well, finally that year has come. It is the year of the Ox. I have never been excited about being an Ox...the steadfast, patient, hard working, plodding up that hill Ox... boring. But this year, I am glad to be the Ox and I decided it is time to go to Japan. I am half Japanese and have always been attracted to Asian things. My gardens, home decor, clothing, jewelry are all Asian. But the main reason I want to go is for my aesthetics-- my art. I want to connect to my heritage in a deeper way. I have been searching for something in my work and I truly believe I may find the missing link in the temples, the stones, the carved and weathered wood in Japan. And Kyoto has many temples, shrines and gardens... and flea markets which will satisfy my love for collecting and shopping. Who could ask for a more beautiful place to fulfill my dream. I leave in a few days and will be home in two weeks. Sayonara for now....

The Seduction of Paper

seduction: something that attracts or charms

sensual: relating to or consisting in the gratification of the senses

------ Miriam-Webster.com

"Throughout time, paper has been the mirror of the soul."
----Dominique Bouisson, The Art of Japanese Paper

"........paper gives us a certain feeling of warmth, of calm and repose. ...It gives off no sound when it is crumpled or folded, it is quiet and pliant to the touch as the leaf of a tree."
--------Jun'ichiro Tanizaki, In Praise of Shadows

Found on the beach: weathered cardboard discs and tubes from spent fireworks.

Paper is supple, solid, sensuous, yet easily destroyed, weathered, worn and torn. Without it there would be no history, no memory. Writers, historians, poets, painters and photographers owe their livelihood and their public recognition to paper. Paper can be so versatile for both functional and artistic purposes. So it is up the the artist to awaken the spirit to its sensuality of touch, and its visual nuances. Paper can be waxed, crumpled, rubbed, modeled, twisted, cut, shaped, torn, folded, oiled, waterproofed, woven, sewn, glued, cast, or sculpted. Collage artists can manipulate paper to achieve a variety of effects. Using basic design elements like line, color, shape, texture, value and movement, the artist can arrange, move and mix papers until it looks "right". Artists can make their collages personal by using letters, photos, books from their own family sources and history. I am always on the lookout for papers--on the sidewalk, torn off of walls and posts, in antique shops and flea markets. I have even found weathered papers on the beach to my great excitement! I look for old maps, letters, receipts, books, labels, and postcards. The search is endless, and the results are an expression of my ideas and feelings based on my history and memory.

Endless Journey

On Seinfeld, Kramer is talking to Elaine:

Kramer: I was on my way to the store to return this pair of pants, when I ducked into the subway tunnel and fell into some mud.
Elaine: What happened?
Kramer: Well, I couldn't return the pants.
Elaine: You were wearing the pants you were going to return?
Kramer: Well, yes.
Elaine: What were you going to wear on the way home?
Kramer: Elaine, you're not listening. I never GOT there!


Question: Are you satisfied with your accomplishments?
Answer: No, I don't feel satisfaction. I feel: "next." When you used the word "satisfied," I didn't even really know what it meant. John Malkovich, actor


No artist is pleased...there is only a queer divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us more alive than any other human beings. Martha Graham

"The first 3 pages are a mess, but on that fourth page is a paragraph that works---and suddenly you don't care about the first 3 pages. You'll throw them out. Those are the pages you needed to write to get to that 4th page, to the one you had in mind all along, only you didn't know that, couldn't know that, until you got there." Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird
Anne Lamott's book is a wonderful, warm, funny, wise book on writing--but as your read it, you realize you can substitute any artist--painter, sculptor, potter, quilter, photographer, collage and assemblage artist, graphic designer, textile artist, and so on.. for the word "writer". As artists we are all faced with the 'blank page'. We all have that big, hard to define "goal" of becoming a better artist. How do you measure such a large ongoing goal? The goal really should be to keep growing, to keep learning, to keep trying something new. We learn new techniques, read books, study art history, go to galleries and museums, take workshops, and experiment. Along the way, we have successes and sometimes, rejections. And we discover that the journey to become a better artist never ends. If it did, we would stop growing. The journey is more important than the destination.


At 22, Dan Eldon was the youngest Reuters photojournalist ever. As he traveled 4 continents, he documented and transformed all his experiences into 17 journals. These notebooks contained photographs, words, paint, ink, and found objects collected in the course of his journeys. In the summer of 1992, Eldon went to Somalia to investigate the rumor of famine. His photographs helped trigger an outpouring of international aid. But in 1993, Eldon was stoned to death by a Somali mob reacting against a UN bombing. The Journey is the Destination is a book about art, but mostly it is a book about the art of life. Obsession. Dream. Goal. Destination. Journey.

Collectors Everywhere, Unite

The memory throws up high and dry
A crowd of twisted things;
A twisted branch upon the beach
Eaten smooth, and polished
As if the world gave up
The secret of its skeleton,
Stiff and white.
A broken spring in a factory yard,
Rust that clings to the form that the strength has left
Hard and curled and ready to snap.
----T.S. Eliot, Rhapsody on a Windy Night, 1917



Objects and Apparitions---for Joseph Cornell
Monuments to every moment,
refuse of every moment, used:
cages for infinity.
Marbles, buttons, thimbles, dice,
pins, stamps, and glass beads:
tales of the time.
----Octavio Paz


"Yet for better or for worse we do love things that bear the marks of grime, soot, and weather, and we love the colors and the sheen that call to mind the past that made them." ------Jun'ichiro Tanizaki, In Praise of Shadows


Collecting is a calling, not a choice. For some people, the impulse to collect takes over. The seduction of the object is too much to resist. When someone acquires their object of affection, there is a feeling of satisfaction. For me, I like anything that is worn, torn, weathered, rusty, or broken.

Signs that you are an obsessed collector:

1. You will risk life and limb to collect something off of the side of a busy highway/cliff/bridge. (Well, maybe not life or limb.)
2. You will sort through dirty, dusty, rusty bins/boxes/sheds.
   
3. You constantly look down for any shiny, rusty, worn old bit on sidewalks/roads/parking lots.
4. Friends/neighbors leave dead birds, animal skulls and bones on your front porch.
5. You will walk a mile into a beach, load up on rocks, and walk out with sweat pouring down your face.
6. You collect boxes to put your collections in.
7. You have rust in your hair.
8. Old junk looks like beautiful treasure to you.

Do you have any odd collections? What is your obsession?