2000: Passing

January 2021
Athens, GA

WINTER is here! It came to Athens earlier than anyone can remember. We had snow before Christmas and it has been hovering around freezing or below ever since, save for a few days of rain when we did not have to struggle with the ice that often means winter in Georgia. The snow here was light, but schools were closed, and it was just deep enough for kids to get out and roll up a mini snowman. Our first Christmas in Athens 30+ years ago was rainy, foggy and 70˚ causing the gingerbread men to melt off the tree.

I sit here on a cold winter night with my laptop, in front of the fire, tree still ablaze with its hundreds of lights, green tea in my favorite Japanese cup with blue rabbits flying over an Art Deco border, pondering the past year as I try to connect with friends around the US and the world. I have never been this late in getting out my holiday letter, but I refused to panic knowing that when the time came it would somehow be right.

The first weekend in December Page, Jeanne and grandson Lee, now almost 8, planned the most wonderful birthday (which is in October) gift for me: a 5 mile trek in the Appalachians to Hike Inn at Amicalola Falls, Georgia. It is accessible only by foot via a gently ascending and beautiful trail. The weather was overcast and trees stark without fall foliage, but stands of white pines, hollies and forests of mountain laurel and rhododendrons 15 to 20 feet tall provided new sights along the way. Lee was a real trooper throughout the trek only asking to, “Please let me stop to rest for 30 seconds!”, occasionally along the way. After the 3+ hours hike we arrived about dusk at the Inn — seeming to appear out of the mist like a Shinto Shrine with crossed beams at the gable ends and deep roof overhangs. I was transported into another world. The rooms are of the bunkhouse type, the dining is family style and wood burning stoves keep you warm in the reception area, dining room and in the lowest level Sunrise Room with its cozy ambiance stocked with games, puzzles, and books for entertainment of young and old. Before retiring it had begun to sleet a bit and by morning, we had 3” inches of the most beautiful snow in the world. A winter wonderland, indeed. After our hearty breakfast we headed down the trail through a fantasy land of snow be-decked trees which Lee insisted we shake over him until every last flake had fallen. What a gift to remember! And one of our happiest together as a family.

This glorious weekend was in stark contrast to the loss of my mother in August. Her health had been failing over the last six months with short stays in the hospital in February, April, June and, finally, in early August when she had GI hemorrhaging that weakened her considerably and was put in the ICU where she died peacefully of a stroke or strokes on August 7, just three weeks prior to her 91st birthday. After my return from Japan in June I had to have care persons about 16 hours per day as her sleeping schedule did not match mine. We had great staff, notable was Annie who was her day person the last month or so and so very positive, outgoing and concerned. Mother had a series of dedicated care givers who did not have an easy time as her Alzheimer’s progressed. I will always be thankful that she was able to spend her last 4 years with me here in Athens. We had memorial services in Athens and later in Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin where she had lived most of her life. Her ashes were buried in Wisconsin next to my father. Friends and family have dedicated a Japanese maple to her memory along a path in the State Botanical Garden of Georgia in Athens where I often took her for walks in her wheelchair. I have had the memorial candle we lit at her services burning throughout the holidays and again tonight as I write. We depended upon each other very much, so her loss is deeply felt as I once again try to shape a life alone in the house on Harben Place.

I had two super trips to Kyoto in 2000 with the help of the dedicated care givers and my cousin, Mick, who came down from Wisconsin to stay with Mother for two weeks in May. The first trip in March was over our Spring Break, plus a few days, to enjoy all that I love in the city and my ancient rental house there. It was really cold in March with a few snow flurries during the time I was there. The camellias were blooming in my garden, but the plum blossoms were not quite out then. I had to make final plans for the second Study Abroad Program in our Maymester but was also able to see many friends, view exhibitions, and see a kabuki performance at Minamiza . A major event was at the Kiyomizu Temple where certain revered Buddhist statues of Kannon and other figures were on display in a ‘once in thirty years’ cycle. As it was also the millennium a major festival/ceremony was planned. The famous film costume designer Emi Wada (who did costumes for Kurosawa films) was in charge of design. My former studio assistant in Kyoto and graduate student here at UGA, Koichi Kimura, who had just returned to Kyoto in the final phases of planning and execution was able to assist Wada-san. His family, for generations, has owned an upscale souvenir shop in the temple precinct and were one of the sponsoring establishments for the festival. So, Koichi also had a role as the number two man in handling and manipulating a 30-foot fantastic Dragon (2000 being the Year of the Dragon) with scales made of old Buddhist texts. There was a large cast of participants and celebrants, but the Dragon was the star of the show with 12 men in control of its wild contortions — I dubbed them the Dragon Boys and it stuck for the months to come. I was there for the first ceremony, on a cold rainy day, with my video cam held on high so a bevy of grandmothers close by and I could see what was going on by watching the monitor screen. I was a special guest at a reception after the performance where I met the local dignitaries and Wada-san, a diminutive woman with the creative energy of a giant. A day or two later we had a fine sunny day and the procession, with Dragon leading, wound its way around the temple grounds and out into the streets of the neighborhood. This Dragon Festival was certainly the highlight of my March trip to Kyoto, but I reveled in my old (and COLD) house and puttered in the garden. The giant leaf ivy I planted in the fall of 1997 has covered the unsightly corrugated metal fence at the rear of the garden so now I have a luscious wall of green.

The Study Abroad group left on graduation day, May 13, arriving in Osaka on schedule and a few hours later ensconced in the Ryokan Rakucho near the Kamogawa in the north central section of Kyoto. We were disappointed the next day when the anticipated Aoi Matsuri was rained out. We diverted to the center of the city to the department stores and our city headquarters, GalleryGallery, where the group could view the new co-op gallery space where each artist displayed small works in a series of glass fronted cabinets. Each student had the chance to select the artist they would later interview and give a report on to the whole group at the end of the program. The first week was spent in traveling all about the city visiting important temples, shrines, galleries, museums, flea markets, and traditional and contemporary studios. It was total immersion in Kyoto culture, old and new, exhilarating and totally exhausting (for the younger crowd who wonder at this old guy’s stamina). Years of practice, I guess. The next three weeks were spent at the Kawashima Textile School, a private institution, in the northern foothills where we can enjoy the beauty and the isolation of the setting and concentrate on the studio work in three separate one week fabric workshops. We took breaks from the routine for various events. The Dragon Boys hosted us for a super yaki niku (barbecue) party followed by a rather wild night of karaoke. We also broke the studio routine by visits to other art schools where my students had a chance to network with their Japanese peers, hit the Kitano Shrine flea market, attended a torch light Noh performance, al fresco, at the Heian Shrine and went on the much-anticipated visit to the Edo Period village of indigo dyer Hiroyuki Shindo. The group was a bit smaller than the previous year but worked out very well. I am adding sumi-e (ink painting) this coming year in an attempt to increase our enrollment. Plans are underway for a March visit and the four-week Maymester session in 2001.

The holiday season has been a non-stop round of parties and other celebrations — thus this letter’s unfortunate delay. My first party for all of my 18 students for a sit down Christmas Dinner was on December 8 just before finals followed by another for 12 close Athens friends, next a Japanese nabe party for 9 graduate students, spouses, partners and kids. Then smaller get togethers of 2, 3 or 4 of former students that have been close to me and are important in my life. Page, Jeanne, Lee and Jeanne’s cousin Kiwan (who stayed with me years ago when he was studying English here at UGA) and his wife, visiting from Korea, came on Christmas Eve day for gifts, gaiety and dinner. Lee is into the phase where every gift should be his and is more than eager to open anything. He is into Gundam Wing, a Japanese anime (animated cartoon), and all the characters. Since my party is the first of the gifts he opens, I am on the cutting edge of the new gifts and am thankful for e-shopping when it comes to toys, games and other goodies for him. Kiwan and Eun-Kyoung stayed over the 24th with me, we toured the campus and Athens on Christmas before heading to Atlanta and dinner at Jeanne’s Mom’s, as is our tradition. That night we took the Korean visitors to see the ‘largest moving light show in the world’ at Lanier Island resort northeast of Atlanta as a grand finale to the holiday. On the 26th I was off to Roswell to spend the day with cousin Mick, her hosts, daughter Lisa and husband John, along with Mick’s son Randy and his family from Wisconsin. It was a great family reunion. The 27th I had my traditional pre-New Year’s cocktail buffet for 25 Athens friends. New Year’s Eve I spent with my Korean student Sang-Wook Lee and his family dining on traditional Korean New Year’s soup and other goodies. On New Year’s Day they joined Page, Jeanne and Lee here for southern comfort foods (black-eyed peas and collard greens) for good luck in the New Year. For the last week I have been devoting all of my free time to studio work — and in a state of ecstasy. I have not had more than a few hours there since summer. I am working on a new series that is a wild venture for me — recycled industrial sample textiles gathered from a dustbin in Kyoto. “Soft Scrolls — Kyoto Castoffs” is the working title of the series. More on this project next year.

I had a limited number of exhibitions this year with a group faculty show in the new Lyndon House Art Center here in Athens where I showed my new works of Thai architecture on colorful Thai silk fabrics. Over the summer I had a solo show “Silk Roads: Travels with Glen Kaufman” at the One and Two American Center in Nashville. I had cards from that show that I had saved for this mailing. I put them in a ‘safe’ place and, of course, cannot find them anywhere. This is happening more and more often in recent years. Is this an omen? I may still locate them before this missive is posted. Well, I have now switched to Sandeman’s Fine Tawny Porto with a Bach partita surrounding me as I pause for a sip and a chance to wish you the VERY HAPPIEST NEW YEAR OF THE SNAKE.