Happy New Year 2023: Totoya Hokkei
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 ...
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Curator's Corner
Looking Ahead to Winter: Wayne Higby Ceramics
It just snowed where I live and winter is fast approaching. I personally love winter, snow and all, but I know many New Englanders dread it. That’s why there are a lot of “snowbirds” ...
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Curator's Corner
Gems of the Month: Aizuri-e
This month, I’m celebrating aizuri-e, or “blue prints,” from Japan’s ukiyo-e style that flourished during the Edo Period (ca. 1615–1868). The color Prussian blue was intr ...
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Curator's Corner
World Landscape Architecture Month: Nanzen-ji
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 ...
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Curator's Corner
Peace for the New Year
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 ...
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Curator's Corner
Gem of the Month: Hashimoto Gahō
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 ...
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Curator's Corner
Auspicious Friend for the New Year: Kanō Isen'in Naganobu
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 ...
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Curator's Corner
The Month of Frost: Hashimoto Gahō
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 ...
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Curator's Corner
Second Leader of the Kanō School: Kanō Motonobu
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 ...
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Curator's Corner
World Watercolor Month: Yosa Buson
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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