A Walk to a Nearby Buddhist Temple.

January 4th, 2009 | Journal

Today Bette and I took a walk in the neighborhood and discovered a beautiful Buddhist Temple. I became especially interested in the lichen covered Jiso statues and the lichen covered text cut into the stone. We met a friendly farmer on the way back who gave us a huge daikon radish. A quick stop to the hardware store and back home. It is amazing what can be seen and experienced in what one suspects is otherwise a routine or ordinary outing. The last two images are of logs sold at the hardware store that are drilled with holes, filled with mushroom spores and capped with styrofoam plugs. The mushrooms grow and push out the plugs. If you look closely at the last image you can see a mushroom has grown out of the log.

Toyama City Institute of Glass Art

January 1st, 2009 | News

Toyama City Institute of Glass invited me to lecture this past December. It was really a case of visiting old friends as I’ve known many of the instructors there for over 15 years. TIG has long been a leader in glass education in Japan and have invited artists from around the world to lecture and demonstrate at their excellent facilities. The Head Instructor of TIG Ryoji Shibuya is also a practicing artist as is Senior Instructor Jin Hongo and Instructor Makiko Nakagami/Ivy. Visiting Instructors Lada Semecka from the Czech Republic is teaching casting and Robert Lewis from the USA has been teaching glassblowing at TIG. Other teaching assistant staff are Mami Tokizawa and Chicaco Ogawa. I will introduce Makiko Nakagami/Ivy’s and Mami Tokizawa’s works along with TIG Advanced Research Student Work and TIG 2008 Graduation Works first and add images of the other instructors soon.