Bonenkai (Forget The End Of The Year Party)

December 14th, 2008 | Journal

Recently I was fortunate to be invited with Hiroshi Yamano to attend Hiragane Sensei’s Bonenkai or “Forget The End Of The Year Party”. Hiragane sensei is a well known fabric artist and kimono maker who after years in his successful business became involved in the Osaka University of Art. It was Hiragane sensei who spearheaded the idea of adding a glass program to the university and who sought out Hiroshi Yamano to head the OUA Glass Program. Hiragane sensei lives in a traditional Japanese home in urban Osaka in a quiet neighborhood with his wife and daughter. It is not often one is invited into one’s home in Japan so this was a very special experience for me. The dinner was an exceptional feast! Hiragane sensei shared with us a private showing of his work some of it not yet exhibited. The photo of the hanging scroll painted by Hiragane sensei in the living room is the Kanji character “Michi” which means “way” or in this case one’s road in life and I believe this is his trade mark or sign as he also wrote this in a book of his work which he gave to me. This evenings wonderful event brought to mind another Japanese kotowaza “Ichi-go Ichi-e” which means “One Meeting, One Chance” the Japanese version of Carpe Diem or “Seize The Day”. In short this is one forget the end of the year party I’ll always remember.

Osaka University of Art Glass Program Meets RIT/SAC Glass Program

September 30th, 2008 | News

This project’s aim is to introduce the Osaka University’s Art’s Glass Program to The Rochester Institute of Technology’s Glass Program by posting images of Graduate and Senior student work from both schools for students to see what their counterparts are doing 7000 miles away from each other! I’ll begin by introducing OUA’s Glass Graduate students.