A Blanket of Peace

Since my last post I have been to Hawaii to visit my family. When I returned, winter had come to my zen gardens. We actually had a white Thanksgiving. Yes, snow and ice is beautiful to look at, and very cold and icy if you have to go out and especially drive on snowy, icy roads. But when it is snowing, there does seem to be a quiet silence all around, like the snow is muffling the sounds and a purity is covering everything.


The following art works are by artists who work mostly in wood cut and print making. You can find more of their works at the Ren Brown Collection here. You can also find more of these artists and their works at The Tolman Collection, Tokyo here.

Rei Morimura, relief print/woodblock

Solitude is a way of waiting for the inaudible and the invisible to make itself felt.
-- Peggy Pond Church

Kawase Hasui, woodblock

Werner Bischof, photograph

I await the birth hour of a new clarity.
--- Rilke

Joshua Rome, woodcut

"And remember that the light is within
if it is anywhere
and you must paint from the inside
Start with purity
and pure white"
--Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Saito Kiyoshi, woodblock

Miyamoto Shufu, wood block

"The pure white of gesso
the pure white of cadmium white
the pure white of flake white
the pure virgin canvas
the pure life we all begin with..."
---Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Joel Stewart, aqua tint

Lucy Arai, mixed media/collage/sumi ink

Come away from the din.
Come away to the quiet fields
Over which the great sky stretches
and where, between us and the stars
there, in the stillness
let us listen to the voice
that is spreading within us.
--- Jerome K. Jerome

Peace for everyone everywhere.