1990: Reunions

May 1,1990
Athens, GA

Spring came early to Athens this year with warm weather and early blooms in March, ahead of schedule. Everything was fresh and beautiful. This was followed by colder nights when frost damaged some plants. Despite the changing temperature, the greening of the city and the countryside was a welcome event. By mid-April the early blossoms nave faded but the trees and shrubs are in full leaf. Spring has come!

The return to Athens in December was quickly followed by the Christmas and New Year’s holidays that seem so long ago now. My mother came to Georgia with me, and we flew together to California to spend the holidays with my son, Page and his wife, Jeanne, who have recently settled in Marina del Rey. Page has his first position as a lawyer with a large law office in downtown Los Angeles while Jeanne is working on her Ph.D. dissertation on modern Japanese literature. We had a delightful time together exploring the Los Angeles area from the seashore to the mountains and including the museums and other spots of interest. We were real California tourists.

Teaching classes in textile history and weaving have kept me busy at the University along with committee responsibilities and writing many reports and letters. We have been searching for a new department chairman, and that process, now concluding, has taken a lot of my time.

In part of January and February my mother visited family and friends in Florida and I drove her by car down and back again. Although the trips were short ones I had some time to enjoy the warmer climate and change of scenery. Mother went back to her home in Wisconsin in early March.

I have a Japanese student from Okinawa, Shimabukuro Moriyo and one from Seoul, Lee Ki-wan. staying in my house helping with the work and enjoying American life together. My cooking has been a mix of American, Japanese (and Okinawan) and Korean while my mother adds foods I remember from my childhood. It’s never dull at the dinner table. I’m always learning more about English from the questions of Moriyo and Ki-wan.

I was pleased to welcome my friend from Kyoto, Tsuji Kiyoji, to Georgia for a brief visit while he was traveling between New York to Cincinnati (for the ceramic conference). We had a chance to see Atlanta and meet some friends there for dinner there before arriving in Athens. Tsuji-san was a student in my last History of Textiles class which was a four-hour lecture on contemporary fiber art (in the whole world!). We were all exhausted when it was over. Then we ate a real southern barbeque lunch before we toured some countryside and a small town with many pre-Civil War houses – a glimpse of the Old South. While he was here, we worked on plans for the Surface Design Association conference in Seattle in 1991 with the theme of “Perspective from the Rim” and a focus on surface design in Japan and America. The work will continue on this project over the next year.

At the time of our spring break in March I was able to spend a week in New York. It was a very successful week, with visits to the museums and galleries and a chance to see friends as well. I had productive and enjoyable meetings with Mildred Constantine, Jack Larsen, the new director of the American Craft Museum and my old editor of “Design on Fabrics”. In addition, I had a reunion with three of the former Japanese students who have stayed in my house, saw a couple of Broadway shows and totally recharged my creative batteries.

This quarter I am teaching my seminar in Japanese textiles, which I always enjoy, and a weaving class. The seminar has me busy preparing for two lectures each week and finding new visual material to make the story interesting. This year I am showing videos from a series produced in Japan (for NHK) called “Japan: Spirit and Form” in six parts and hosted by Sato Shuichi. The intercultural approach is very interesting, and I hope it will give my students a better understanding of Japanese history and art. We will be doing some shibori work later in the quarter.

My mother recently returned to Athens for her spring visit, and she is kept busy at my house and by my friends who take her to lunch, invite her to play cards and to dinner parties. It’s a real social event when she arrives in Athens, and she loves all the activities and the attention.

In terms of my own studio work the effort is on “hold” but “counting” until I can return to Kyoto in the middle of June. I will have a solo show of my work at The Allrich Gallery in May as you will note from the enclosed announcement. I will fly out for the opening and spend a few days seeing other shows and friends while I’m there. I hope to visit some of the schools in the Bay Area at the same time.

I will leave Athens in June as soon as the term ends, spend some time with Page and Jeanne and fly directly to Osaka from Los Angeles. After a few days “at home” I will go to Tokyo for about a week, returning to Kyoto to settle in and begin work about July 1. I’m looking forward to my return which means “back to the studio” and back to my friends in Japan. I look forward to seeing you.

Sincerely,
Glen Kaufman