3 Years in Sendai -4

My favorite Artistic style is the actual doing of my daily sketches of life. Hence where ever or whenever I get the chance to i do my sketching or drawing to bring myself closer to being in the moment in space and time; it is my meditation. I never had the idea of selling my sketches and so i never worried too much about making them look too realistic or put too much effort into them.  

When I get a little more involved like adding more details and colors than i call them drawings, not sketching anymore. All these pictures and sketches that i have been entering into the blog are from one of my sketchbooks of which there are four or maybe five of them done in Sendai. Each picture and sketch tells of a moment in time when and where i was doing what it was that i was doing. I was on a trip organized by the Kendo club of the Yochien where my children attended school and my son Karim was one of the Kendo Kids, but i don't think he enjoyed it too much.

The seaside port of Uriage hama.

The death of a great Artist whose works had been an entertainment ot millions of children all over the world.

I could not help but felt like I was living in a kids world when i was living in Sendai. Perhaps it was because children were held in such high esteem by everyone and  by being there i too became very close to my children. What they were doing had great impact on my own sense of well being, I felt like a child myself. I saw the place through the yes of a child.

My children were exposed to so much life and  sights and sounds, colors and  most of all nature while they grew up in Sendai. They might have forgotten it all by now after almost twenty years, but I strongly believe that somewhere in the their subconscious mind they still have in store all that they were exposed to.

The friends we made too have by now gone their separate ways and most probably only have vague memories of our good times together, I am glad that i took the trouble to capture these moments in time even if i could not share it with them, their memory of being there still holds true for me. Perhaps someday my children will look at these and be able to relate of who they are and what they had once been.

The opportunity to visit places that you normally would have missed was due to making good friends.

Traditional Japanese paintings done by my friend Reichiro San, which he later makes them into kites. 

Capturing the environment through Art.- Sendai 3

Does God exist? Someone ask Deepak Chopra, and he said Yes! with little hesitation, God exist but not in any form but as an infinite consciousness. CONSCIOUSNESS! tHE KEY TO OUR VERY EXISTENCE AND YET VERY FEW TAKES NOTICE THAT IT IS EVEN THERE . a SLIP OF MY FINGER AND i WILL LEAVE IT AS SUCH.. When I sit and draw what is before me I am always there, almost one hundred percent as my mind will never allow for me to be totally lost in what I am doing. Sitting on the banks of the Hirose River in the heart of the City of Sendai. A small amount of my consciousness will always vbe occupied by the presence of sounds and smells and the relative thoughts and ideas about where i was.

Hirose-gawa (Hirose River)

Symbolic river in the city of forest

Since the inauguration of city of Sendai by a great Samurai Master Masamune Date in 1600, Hirose River has been widely renowned with symbolic status of the city. Each of many pools and bridges has its own historical legend. The natural setting of river structure has a complex appeal ranging from torrents to shallow streams. Attractions of Sendai City, nicknamed as city of forest, can not be finished without raising great natural features of Hirose River.... by Global waters

Hirose-gawa (Hirose River)

Symbolic river in the city of forest

Since the inauguration of city of Sendai by a great Samurai Master Masamune Date in 1600, Hirose River has been widely renowned with symbolic status of the city.
Each of many pools and bridges has its own historical legend. The natural setting of river structure has a complex appeal ranging from torrents to shallow streams.
Attractions of Sendai City, nicknamed as city of forest, can not be finished without raising great natural features of Hirose River.... by Global waters

The main building of the Mukaiyama Yochien was what was once a Church. The building was  an old wooden structure built some sixty years ago from when i was there perhaps even older. Most of the Japanese family that I got to meet had faith in Christianity, the rest was hard to figure out. I rarely met anyone who would claim himself or his family as having a believe in Shintoism or Zen Buddhism. The Japanese it seemed to me were more into the form of the spirituality rather than the spirituality itself. or perhaps they rarely show it in their everyday life of how spiritual or religious they were.

There are  parks all over the country from some the size of a kitchen garden to those that covers acres of natural forests, more so than anywhere else in the world, I feel and they are always well kept and evokes serenity and one being close to nature.  It is  part of the Japanese way of life it seemed to spend a great deal of their time in the parks, perhaps my take was the fact that they live in relatively small and confined homes.

I did this drawing  in a short time that we spent while stopping for a drink along one of our trips, it was also too cold to be spending too much time out in the open. This was an orchard sometime in winter in Aomori Prefecture in northern Japan.

This scene is quite common in most Japanese countryside where you have the small garden with its small shrine where the boncho bell hangs and a well nearby for washing yourself..  

Another random scene where ancient trees brave the snow in Aomori Composition - is inseperable from function and purpose of a painting. A Painting's intended function the pattern in which it will be composed and the artist's philosophical is in turn realized through his positioning. of key elements of the painting in relation to each other.
The artist is constrained to follow such general prescriptions bu the power  and vitality of his work flow from his freedom and responsibility to make specific choices in subject matters and its placement.

Working with black and white for snow scenes can be very exciting and technically challenging. In the use of Black ink or Sumi-e  painting, white snow, mist, fog or the surface of water are all expressed by the absence of the ink. An ink wash is applied  to all aeas other than those the artist wishes to designate as snow, mist or water. To do this successfully  the artist must be sensitive to the type of paper used, its absorbency, this and the tone of the ink.

Temple courtyard in winter at Matsushima
Zuiganji (瑞巌寺) is one of the Tohoku Region's most famous and prominent Zen temples, and is well known for its beautifully gilded and painted sliding doors (fusuma). Zuiganji was originally founded in 828 as a temple of theTendai sect, and was converted into a Zen temple during the Kamakura Period (1192-1333). After years of decline, Zuiganji was restored to prominence by the feudal lord Date Masamune who rebuilt it as his family temple in 1609.

The unwritten rule of Sumi-e a work down to its fundamental elements; line and space, bothe stroke and space must be considered simultaneously. Each line in Sumi-e should be deliberate and meaningful, as should the space it defines. The artist should not over paint or add superfluous strokes. In the absence of extraneous strokes each line becomes important and must be carefully weighed.
 

Another temple courtyard in winter in Aomori.
The spirit of Sumi-e is to embrace chance while leaving nothing to chance. In this respect it is easy to understand why a good Sumi-e painting is at the same time deliberate and precise, yet deceptively simple or even unfinished, in appearance compared to traditional Western Painting in which space is simply filled.
 The Art of Sumi-e : Adapted from - "Realms of the Chinese Immortals."

Three Years in Sendai, Japan. -2

The Japanese people and culture has always been my fascination and my art i dare say is very much influenced by this. Being able to spend some time in Japan had been a boon to me and my family as my late wife who had spent seven year prior to our trip in japan can red and write Japanese and as a matter of fact was a qualified Japanese language teacher aside from her ESL qualification. If I had been given the choice between spending time in Italy or in Japan as an artist in residence, I would have chosen the later. Katsushita Hokusai is one of my spiritual Art Masters and Rembrandt is his counterpart from the West. 

My children, Karim and Marissa benefit most from this stay in Japan as they were brought up for three years of their lives in one of the best Japanese Kindergartden schools that practices the Rudolf Steiner method  in Sendai. Initially they were lost and frightened as they could not understand a word that was spoken, but once they got over the hump it was  harder to keep them home than to send them to school. They started schooling in the best possible place one can imagine and the three years spent at the Mukaiyama YoChien was an experience not like any other even for me.

The two best family friends that we had while living in the Yasoen area of Sendai were Reichgiro san  and Mayumi Isaka San both living in the neighborhood.of the Miyagi Prefecture. Reichiro San was had a Laundromat  at the 'top of the hill from where we were living and he was also a Haiku Artist who also makes and paints kites in the old traditional Japanese style..  During my stay in Sendai, Reichiro San was one of the most helpful and supportive friend i had.  We had an art show together in downtown Sendai which I felt made him ver please that his works were being exhibited even if it was alongside mine. He wrote a few caligraphic haiku writings for me in my works and sketchbooks too..
 The artwork seen in the picture was one of my Monoprint which I called 'Tsunami" and this was way back in 1996 or 7 and the work is now in Dubai property of my eldest son, The Pilot. Had I known that a mega Tsunami would later devastate parts of the coastal areas of Sendai I would not have  used the title Tsunami.

Reichiro San and i had  visitor from the United States whose wife was teaching in Sendai too, he was a down to earth home grown kind of guy easy to be with.  We had quite a few visitors like this and it was nice to be able to exchange cultures and understanding. Reichiro San enjoyed the fact that he was aable to practice his Queen's English.

 

The Mukaiyama Yochien where my children spent three of their childhood years was  always bustling with activities and I was very much involved as i was pretty much the designated home maker as my wife was very busy teaching all over Japan. This was where i got to know the Japanese housewives up close and personal as most were eager to try their English out on me. Here i got to know what the word Gaijin meant especially from the children who were less cautious with their expressions... 

My act of sketching or drawing in their presence was the ice breaker towards communication as most Japanese Ladies were an artist at heart. As an artist one feels special and was treated as such. While living in Japan I found that what I had imagine as faar as the culture goes was mostly true, the Japanese people were mostly very self absorbing and maticuluous when it comes to work especially creative endeavors.

The school caters to the higher income bracket and every occasion that presents itself and calls for  a family picture saw an all out dress code. Parents would try to  outdo one another in how elegantly they dressed  and  the children were made to look like overdressed dolls. 

My free time was mostly spent at the Miyagi Museum of  Fine Arts where they had 'An Open Studio Policy" that encourages  the Sendai area artists to do their work here for free of charge. I was most productive here and I felt very much at home doing my art among the Japanese artists.

Being able to draw and paint had its perks when it comes to getting places and meeting people.

Taking a break from the Present.- Looking back at Sendai, Japan.

The family just lost their mother and were still in mourning. till we visited them. The Sugawara Family.

ate, ken (prefecture), northeastern Honshu, Japan, bordering the Pacific Ocean (east). The greater part of its area is mountainous—dominated by the central Kitakami Mountains—and the climate is cold. The fishing port of Miyako on the eastern coast serves as the gateway to Rikuchū Coast National Park, which includes some rugged, scenic shoreline. The western fringe of the prefecture is part of Towada-Hachimantai National Park.

Agriculture, forestry, mining, and fishing support most of the population. Rice paddies occupy more than half the cultivated land, yielding only one crop per year. Morioka, located on the Kitakami River, is the prefectural capital and the site of Iwate University (1949). A major railway hub, the city produces ironware and charcoal. The first modern ironworks in Japan were in the coastal city of Kamaishi, south ofMiyako. Other cities—including Hanamaki, Kitakami, Ōshū (formerly Mizusawa), and Ichinoseki—are situated in the central lowland area .

There is no doubt that the Japanese countryside for me is one of the most serenely captivating landscape i have ever set my eyes on as there is a mixture of the cooler climate as well as the temperate climate the saw the vegetation of both these temperate  environment such as rice field with the back ground of pine forest covered hills which I visited on one of my travels in  Iwate Prefecture. 

1. Iwate Prefecture is the second largest prefecture of Japan after Hokkaido. It is located in the Tōhoku region of Honshū island and contains the island's easternmost point. The capital is Morioka.Wikipedia

The Japanese were to me the most paradoxical people in their manners and behaviors and it is  not an easy thing to really understand what or how the Japanese thinks until you truly have earned their  respect and understanding of you and how or what makes you tick. In dealing with them as most other nations on earth, honesty is the best policy, it is best to let them know that you are ignorant then to make believe that you are full of wisdom. To be accepted into the typical home of the Japanese family especially the ones who live out in the more remote areas is an honor and a heart warming experience that you will take with you for the rest of your life. Her in Iwate my children and I were guests to the Sugawaras where there was a death in the family quite recently. We were invited by one of my wife's students whose mother had died at a young age leaving behind herself and two younger brothers, their father and grand parents all living under the  same roof.

I was unaware of the situation until I saw the family altar and the picture of the deceased and enquired about it with my host. As it turned out the presence of my children and myself in the house broke the ice of gloom and mourning that the whole family was still in the grip of I was told later by my wife's student. The family came back to life with the carefree playfulness of my children that even the father became cheerful she said. Here I got to learn of the lessons in life about how your presence can help make a positive change into someone else's when no effort was made to do so. By being who we were laughing and sketching and drawing, taking pictures and asking silly questions we helped the family to forget their tragedy.

A drawing done by one of the brothers.

Magnitude-5.2 earthquake jolts Tohoku

An earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 5.2 jolted northeastern parts of Japan on Sunday afternoon, the Meteorological Agency reported. The quake struck at 2:24 p.m. at a depth of around 70 km on the southern coast of Iwate Prefecture, the agency said. In ...

MORIOKA, IWATE PREF. – A beach devastated by the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami disaster in Iwate Prefecture reopened Saturday after three years of work to remove debris from sand and in the water to ensure safety.

I Am That, I have envisioned.

"A fundamental conclusion of new physics also acknowledges that the observer creates the reality. As observers, we are personally involved with the creation of our own reality. Physicists are being forced to admit that the universe is a “mental” construction. Pioneering physicist Sir James Jeans wrote: “The stream of knowledge is heading toward a non-mechanical reality; the universe begins to look more like a great thought than like a great machine. Mind no longer appears to be an accidental intruder into the realm of matter, we ought rather hail it as the creator and governor of the realm of matter. Get over it, and accept the inarguable conclusion. The universe is immaterial-mental and spiritual.” (R.C. Henry, “The Mental Universe” ; Nature 436:29,2005) (source)

Science is quickly catching up to ancient wisdom. Changing our world requires action, yes, but that action must come from a place of peace, love , cooperation and understanding. Who is to say that meditation, and directing intention towards what we would like to change is not the base of action? If you change within, manifestation without will begin to unfold, and that’s exactly what’s happening on our planet right now. If our hearts are in the right place, and our intentions are pure, we will be provided with the necessary opportunities using action to implement change. This is why the role of consciousness, and recognizing the role of consciousness is so important. It plays a large factor in creating global change on a mass scale."

“No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.” – Albert Einstein

Sources:

(1) http://media.noetic.org/uploads/files/PhysicsEssays-Radin-DoubleSlit-2012.pdf

The Earth A Living Creature 720p -( The Amamzing NASA HD Video).

“Contrary to the common belief that the Earth is simply a dense planet whose only function is a resource for its inhabitants, our planet is in fact a breathing, living organism. When we think of the Earth holistically, as one living entity of its own, instead of the sum of its parts, it takes on a new meaning. Our planet functions as a single organism that maintains conditions necessary for its survival.”  

We’ve all heard of the concept of mother earth, or the “gaia hypothesis” and how the planet isn’t just made of dead matter, but is actually a conscious, living being. Here’s a little snippet from another article we published on our website:

So as i keep probing into the contents of the Internet channelling my intuition and intention towards getting answers to my long time believe that human consciousness collectively creates the world as it is far fetched as it may seem even to myself is as a matter of fact being slowly but surely confirmed by modern science and geologists. Yes i realize that, who am i to even consider having had such ideas way back when, but the fact remains I did, at the very least i can admit this to myself. I felt strongly that through deep meditative state the human mind Can generate a great deal of energy to move mountains as the ancient adage tried to tell us and through out our human history this idea has been put forward by various schools of thoughts and religious systems. This has been the underlying common thread that almost all religions hold to be true and that is why we find almost all religions tells us not to desecrate 'Mother Earth'. To treat Mother nature as having a will of its own much greater than we can imagine is a very healthy to view our planet especially today where man has just about 'shit on the very plate that he eats'.
I told my daughter of how i had imagined my children would be if and when I decided to have kids, I told her that although it may sound like i was bragging , it was the truth. I told myself that I was capable of envisioning what they would look like and how strong in body and mind they would become and this was when I was first turned towards the idea of being married and having children. My first child happened when I was 25 years of age and he came into my life in the most out of the ordinary way which was the cause for a drastic change in my life, it was never the same again. Born in Malaysia and grew up in the United States ever since his mother and I left the country when he was 4 months old and never to return till he was 16, just to visit. Now he is a Flight Captain with Emirates Air. Off course i did not envisioned the whole scenario from cradle till today but i strongly believe that my mind had foreseen how it was going to most of it at least, yes I had it planned! and it turned out not too shabby I might add.
Even when I was in 'High School' my mind was already in the West and the US precisely,and i had walked the snow fields of Wisconsin in my dreams and tasted the wine and roses through so much reading of novels by great writers like James Michner and Harold Robins, writers whose books had been food for my imagination while living within the sight of the South China Sea in Kuala Terengganu. I was a product of the books i read and the music I listened to thanks to my eldest brother who made it possible for me: ours was the first few homes to own a collection of Playboy Magazines, another great source of reading. Yes on looking back in my past i now can safely say that what i thought in the past has helped in creating my present or should I say the future. My only regret in this is that I had not been more creative with a good sense of discipline and awareness perhaps with a little more sensitivity towards others along the way. But then I would not be me if anything is or had been different.
In short I have become a strong believer in the idea that 'you create your own world, your own environment and your own, life if you know how to put your mind to it. Most people are not fully aware of this and allow life or the environment o dictate the outcome of their lives or who they are. It is my observation that those who live with this kind consciousness as their firm belief will not have a smooth ride in life, most will meet with walls and dead ends of desperation and despair, if they are not fully aware of who they are or at the very least be able to accept that they are different from the norm, not to say any special, but just different. One of the the characteristics i find about me is that I demand much much more out of life and success or failure is part and parcel of who I have chosen myself to be. I have forged my own destiny knowingly or otherwise, I may not be wealthy materially nor spiritually but i a my own self created entity answerable only to my Maker, the One that I have come to finally fully accept and totally submit myself to. I have taken a long and roundabout way to get to where I am and as i have said somewhere before I have entered my faith in Allah through the back door.
Now I am in the process of making my way to the front line of the 'Saf' when I worship Him. Now i have to accustom myself to praying five times a day. I do not come before my Lord coerced by anyone nor out of fear of anyone ridicule or chastisement, I am a Muslim by my own choice absolutely one faith, it is only me and Him and none other will pass any judgement over how or what I believe in practice.

Everything smells Fishy here in this Country.

After the morning walks  my cousins wqouls usually stop at our local fish market to get something for the day. This is not by all means a big market and so not so much variety of fish is found here and by the looks of it the fish that were did not seem fresh, Since a child I was always thrilled by the trip to the fish market which my grandmother would insist of dragging with every time she went.

 I enjoy the sound and smell and the raw fishy nature of the whole market, the slime and the blood splattered all over the place and men with the butchering knives chopping away at fish heads and tails. The closest i came to doing something odf this nnature was when I was working at the Meat packing plant in Green Bay, Wisconsin where for nine to eleven hours a day i would covered from head to toe in blood from the beef I was boning. But that was in a different lifetime, now just a fleeting memory although i did it for 3 and half years.

Cuttle fish are great to eat but they got to be fresh and these do not look too fresh. Most of the fish I saw was not fresh sad to say and fishermen are going through a tough time in this country due to many factors the most critical of which is the lack of fish available in the nearby seas around the island. They also face the competition with large fishing trawlers that often encroaches into their fishing areas and often wiping out the fish population by the illegal methods used such as the drag net. Fishermen like their counterpart the farmers live a very hard life and are often unappreciated for what they do. I have hung out among fishermen where i used to visit at the fisherman's jetty or 'Pondoks' off the Jelutong highway and from them I learn all there is to know about how hard their life is or what uncertainties lies ahead for them as the developers keep building into the sea more and more unaffordable homes.

This is all we are while we are living our lives in this world today! It does not matter how big or how small, we are just food for the consumers We are the bottom of the food chain.

We  live and die for no rhyme or reason other than to fulfill our alloted time and space  often with no awareness whatsoever that our lives are merely to keep others alive.

Who decides how big or small how cheap or expensive how much is enough and how little is really needed?  We are like cattle headed for the slaughterhouse at the end of the day.

In death there is no dignity as in living there is no meaning when we are so buried in our own ignorance and know not who or what we truly are in the scheme of things.

When chopped up into pieces we are nothing mopre than cubes of flesh unidentifiable from one piece to the next, where have our individuality gone to?

No matter from which angle we look the horror is still the same .

IN the end there is only shapes and colors left to remind us of what we once were.