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Curator’s Corner

Happy New Year 2023: Totoya Hokkei

Tuesday, January 3, 2023 | Karl Cole

Mekari Shinji at the Mekari Shrine in Japan is an annual ritual of cutting wakame seaweed—symbolizing wealth and good fortune—from the ocean at low tide on New Year’s day of the old ...

Curator’s Corner

Disability Pride Month 2022: Yayoi Kusama

Monday, July 18, 2022 | Karl Cole

During her long and distinguished artistic career, artist Yayoi Kusama has explored painting, sculpture, conceptual art, performance art, and installation with sound. She has created a truly unique ae ...

Curator’s Corner

Gem of the Month: Oki Sato

Monday, April 18, 2022 | Karl Cole

It’s always refreshing to learn about a designer who combines an unconventional aesthetic with concern for our climate-changing planet, so Oki Sato’s Cabbage Chair is my Gem of the Month. ...

Curator’s Corner

World Landscape Architecture Month: Nanzen-ji

Monday, April 4, 2022 | Karl Cole

The landscaping and gardens at Nanzen-ji certainly could be considered an outdoor sculptural installation. As landscape architecture, the garden of this extraordinarily peaceful place in Kyoto approac ...

Curator’s Corner

Peace for the New Year

Monday, January 3, 2022 | Karl Cole

The last couple of years have been rather stressful for all of us, I would imagine, what with the pandemic and all its consequences. When I’m stressed out, I tend to want to look at art; the mor ...

Curator’s Corner

Gem of the Month: Hashimoto Gahō

Monday, October 25, 2021 | Karl Cole

I have such an admiration for Japanese monochromatic painting that I decided to celebrate the firm establishment of autumn with one of my favorite nihon-ga artists, who was also featured for his winte ...

Curator’s Corner

National Romance Awareness Month 2021

Monday, August 16, 2021 | Karl Cole

I was not aware of the association of romance with the month of August, but I think it’s refreshing. On one website that explains national month days, it said that “February isn’t th ...

Curator’s Corner

To Mask or Not to Mask

Monday, August 2, 2021 | Karl Cole

The word “mask” gets an emotional response from some folks in these days of pandemic. I wonder, if the masks we're asked to wear looked like these following examples from Davis Digital&rsq ...

Davis Desk

Disability Pride Month 2021 - Yayoi Kusama

Thursday, July 22, 2021 | Karl Cole

July is Disability Pride Month! As we continue to celebrate this annual observance that promotes the pride felt by people with disabilities, today we share artist Yayoi Kusama. During her long and ...

Curator’s Corner

Kimono Patterns and Ukiyo-e Prints

Monday, April 26, 2021 | Karl Cole

The Worcester Art Museum is hosting a fascinating exhibit tying kimono design and its importance in the ukiyo-e print aesthetic. Ukiyo-e, meaning “images of the floating (i.e. transient physical ...

Curator’s Corner

Auspicious Friend for the New Year

Monday, January 4, 2021 | Karl Cole

Pine trees are one of the three “auspicious friends”—plants (along with bamboo and plum blossom) that help welcome the New Year in Japan. Pines are auspicious because they survive an ...

Curator’s Corner

The Month of Frost

Monday, November 30, 2020 | Karl Cole

It’s the last day of November 2020. In Japan, the historical (traditional) calendar was based on the Chinese lunar calendar, which meant that months began three to seven weeks later than the Gre ...

Curator’s Corner

Kittens and Bunnies

Monday, November 16, 2020 | Karl Cole

It’s been a crazy year with this awful pandemic going on, and an equally crazy last two weeks with this nutty election. I think we all need some kittens and bunnies to recoup our mental health. ...

Curator’s Corner

Second Leader of the Kanō School

Monday, August 24, 2020 | Karl Cole

At the end of this week, August 28, we remember the anniversary of the passing of Kanō Motonobu (1476–1559) of the illustrious Kanō School. Not really a “school,” the Kanō School was ...

Curator’s Corner

Rethinking Romanticism Part 2

Wednesday, August 19, 2020 | Karl Cole

This week’s Rethinking Romanticism series continues with romanticism in Japanese art. The Kamakura period (1185–1333) was a particularly turbulent, civil-war-ravaged era in Japan. It is th ...

Curator’s Corner

World Watercolor Month: Yosa Buson

Monday, July 27, 2020 | Karl Cole

If any artists could be called the “masters” of watercolor, it would be the artists of Asia—particularly far eastern Asia (Japan, China, Korea)—who, for centuries, used in ...

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Happy New Year 2023: Totoya Hokkei

Disability Pride Month 2022: Yayoi Kusama

Gem of the Month: Oki Sato

World Landscape Architecture Month: Nanzen-ji

Peace for the New Year

Gem of the Month: Hashimoto Gahō

National Romance Awareness Month 2021

To Mask or Not to Mask

Disability Pride Month 2021 - Yayoi Kusama

Kimono Patterns and Ukiyo-e Prints

Auspicious Friend for the New Year

The Month of Frost

Kittens and Bunnies

Second Leader of the Kanō School

Rethinking Romanticism Part 2

World Watercolor Month: Yosa Buson

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