1987: Fuji-san

December 3, 1987
Kyoto

Greetings:

As my final week in Kyoto quickly passes by special sounds of the city have come sharply into focus. The evenings have become clear and crisp recently and one evening as I returned from my public bath the nearby temple bell sounded a doleful peal and slowly another that echoed through the quiet night. It was unusual because the bells are seldom rung except at New Years, and I have never heard this one rung before. I liked to think of it as a farewell and welcome back. A few mornings later, as I was contemplating jumping out of my warm bed and into the cold room, I heard the distant chant of the wandering priests who come through our neighborhood 2 or 3 times while I am here. The sound was muffled through the closed and draped windows and thus more haunting. The chants slowly grew as the group neared the house and then faded as they traveled on leaving a stillness and yet an echo in the mind.

A third experience was one of silence and that was perhaps the most memorable. When returning from an evening in the city, after the last bus had left, I walked the 30 minutes to my house and passed through the deserted grounds of the vast Daitokuji Temple that dominates and names my section of the city. The south entrance gate is off the busy Kitaoji Avenue with its heavy traffic. As I rose up the steps between the stone walls and over the threshold of the gate, I was struck by how quickly the sounds of the outside world disappear. That night I felt the silence enveloping me as I moved down the stone walk into the darkness. My own footsteps were the only sounds as the moonless, grey sky illuminated my way with its unusual glow. The air was cold and penetrating as I made my way between the shadows of the temple buildings and the ancient trees. Silence. The last stretch of the walk is through a dark tunnel of trees with a large bamboo grove on the south side with its dominant verticals. It was especially dark that evening with the street lights at the distant end providing the only illumination. At this darkest time the sounds of the outside world gradually build again as the street was approached. The special silence faded to a memory.

As the weather cools in October my pace of life here always quickens, usually with long hours in the studio. This year my major effort went into a collaborative project with the Juraku Co., Kyoto’s leading kimono and obi producer, to execute a 4.5-meter-wide work for the International Textile Fair that opened in early November. I expanded on my theme of photo image, this time in oxidized silver leaf, printed over a woven grid. It was a true collaboration in that I had to work closely with the Juraku weavers to create the silk obi fabric that was the ground cloth, the photo screen company that made the large positives from my photographs, and byobuya-san (Japanese screen mounting craftsman) who mounted the work and had valuable suggestions in the early stages of the project. The work progressed rather smoothly, and I was able to complete my printing work on schedule by the third week of October and turn the six panels over to the mounting workshop. The tight schedule did not allow me to see all six panels together until they were up at the photographer’s studio and later at the Fair. But all turned out very well.

During the final days of finishing the printing on the large work, I opened my solo show at Gallery La Pola in Osaka, a little over one hour by train from Kyoto. I was able to be on hand at the gallery for only a few days during the two weeks. One of those visits was in conjunction with a lecture I gave at the American Center in Osaka. Soon after MO and Gregg Phelps arrived in Kyoto with their tour group from Athens. I planned some special activities for them including sampling of Kyoto’s special cuisine. It’s always a pleasure to share my favorite things in Kyoto with visitors from the US. From that point in October there was a constant stream of visitors and when ITF opened in November it reached a peak.

Jody Klein, artist from the Boston area, arrived to complete her collaboration with the Kawashima Tapestry Studio for ITF and later Maya Romanoff and Gerhardt Knodel. Marypaul Yates Weisgal, from Athens and now New York, and her husband Benjamin, arrived pre-ITF to tour a bit and for business contacts. Japanese friends “Nobu” Tsumori (UGA ’87) now in international banking in Tokyo and Takeshi Asai (Doshisha ’87), now with IBM Japan, both stayed at my house one busy weekend.

ITF brought a limited number of foreign and many Japanese fiber artists for the 3-day conference held at the International Conference Center amid the mountains in full fall color. The highlights of the Fair were the International Textile Competition and the collaborative World Textile Studio. The competition included a wide variety of fiber work, dominated by the Americans and the Japanese. There was a full range in scale, process, material and concept that fit the Fair theme rather well. The huge Event Hall also had small exhibitions as well that lent a fair/holiday feeling, especially when you added the recorded music, trendy kimono clad hostesses and the over 80,000 people to the one-week event. It was uniquely Japanese down to the last detail.

Soon after ITF I was off to Sapporo, Hokkaido, for my solo show and lecture at the American Center there. It was my first trip to Hokkaido, and I enjoyed the experience very much. In many ways it is like another country — compared to Kyoto it is the new frontier. So much space everywhere — city and countryside seem so open and vast . The older architecture and other visual clues are very different from the other Japan I know. I spent time touring the museums and the new Art Park and was introduced to the local cuisine by staff members of the Center. From all aspects it was a rewarding experience.

This year I decided to use the Japan/Hong Kong portion of my ticket and returned to HK after 8 years. There are a lot of changes. Jim Guthrie and John Mayberry, formerly from Athens, are back in HK after some years in Tokyo. I spent four very enjoyable days there visiting with Jim and John, touring and shopping. The weather was mild but overcast so I was not able to see up to or down from Victoria Peak.

These final days in Japan are frantic as always and, finally, I will just have to lock my door and leave — not a simple matter this time as I will be bringing my work with me for a show at Gallery EAS in Honolulu opening December 6. I will give several lectures while there, visit friends and, finally, relax on Kaua’i for a few days before plunging into the cold of Wisconsin visiting my mother. She will return with me to Athens for the holidays and we’ll be joined by Page and Jeanne (at Cornell) who will pick up Babak (at Penn State) on the way.

In conclusion, I want to share with you my recent unique experiences with that symbol of Japan, Fuji-san (Mt. Fuji). Now she is shrouded in clouds, mists, smog most of the time and in some recent years I have not been able to see Fuji-san at all. Not so these past few weeks. On my flight from Osaka to Sapporo, covering 3/4 of the length of Japan, we had an unusually clear day and Fuji-san was resplendent from the air, queen of all the mountains around her (Japan is 70% mountainous). It was awe inspiring — but just a prelude. On the Shinkansen from Kyoto to Tokyo I had a wonderful view from near Numazu, only the snow-covered cone free from the grey clouds that covered the base. The snow could be seen blowing off the angular drifts at the summit and the usual contrasts of the red and white smoke stacks of the industrial city in the foreground lending a touch of Japan today. This is the specific locale that Shinkansen passengers usually have a view of Fuji-san. Next, I was returning from the airport to central Tokyo and just passing Tokyo Disneyland when I noticed, in the rosy glow of the western sky floating somewhere above the earth , a dark cone that could only have been Fuji-san. It was like a ghost mountain appearing in some fantastic dream. I stared at it for many minutes before it faded from sight. None of my friends had ever experienced such a view from the expressway but conceded it was in the right direction to be Fuji-san. I am a true believer.

Finally, as if all of this was not much more than I deserved, I had the super-experience that indeed may be that fabled “once in a lifetime” event. On a very clear day, upon leaving Tokyo Station on the Shinkansen, just a few minutes into the trip and still in Tokyo, Fuji-san was clearly visible! — and remained so, on and off, for over an hour of travel. To the east there are a number of lower mountains so that the white peak was almost always framed and given a strange perspective by the dark ranges in the middle ground. The foreground was always changing — first Tokyo, then the outer areas building to Yokohama, followed by the small cities, rice fields now barren and the especially beautiful, sculptured tea “gardens” with their neat rows of carefully trimmed bushes. Then, just before the industrial smoke stacks and just after, I experienced the grand sweep of the rural valley leading up to the foot of the mountain itself — Fuji-san in all its majestic splendor. Gradually the view faded or was interrupted and finally the train entered a tunnel and it was gone. And I am gone — to return again next year …