Tag Archives: self-portrait

Glorious!!

Year in review, 2025.

A tall winter persimmon tree on a hill.
Self portrait of an artist in her studio.
Birds and waves drawn in a sketch book.

Every Cloud Has A Silver Lining.*

– KLM Airline Paper Cup

Birds and waves drawn in a sketch book.
Ocean waves at sundown.
Flower buds on a hill at sunset.
Birds and waves drawn in a sketch book.

All the sketches were done on a Moleskine unruled, without looking at the paper.

It was one of the experiments I conducted on myself this year, this one since around April.

It’s a practice, on a special kind of seeing; with my mind’s eye, to intuit, from the root of all senses.

And to merge with the Waves, to let their Energy flood through me. Wash the sludge off of me.

A bull fled the fight, pulling spears out of his back. Salt in the breeze to nullify the poison.

To revive my memory of what it all could be. Nursed back to Life by dazzling sparkles at the Glorious Shore.

A Wave drawn in a sketch book.
Sea shore at sunset.

Sketches from top:
November 08 at 14:29 – :30
June 24 midday
November 08 at 14:40 – :44
December 21 at 12:39 – :40

Drawn waves in the photo immediately beneath the “Silver Lining” quote, specifically the bottom wave and the one, second from bottom facing right-hand side, are not drawn from the photo of the ocean below. I didn’t notice they look as if I did until after I published this post. I just followed my inspired direction while choosing photos, and this is exactly what I meant, training to see in that special way.

*I am aware that the saying’s not invented by the airline but was printed on their cup and I thought it was charming.

Wishing You A Beautifully Glorious New Year!!

Cocoon.

She was a compact two wheel drive in the modest shade of silver.
Previous owner from western Japan left a cigarette burn on the driver’s seat.
Sales man at the lot remarked on my face, said I look rusted like the car’s old engine.
Purchase was made in autumn 2011, the year everything felt like one big defeat.

Thought nothing good would come from this, turned out couldn’t be further from the truth.
Soon there were nights parked on a sand dune, curled up to hear the endless loop of waves.
We’d ride up the hills, into the storm and rest under the trees, wrapped in their unquestionable resiliency.
Most importantly though, she was a shelter with changing sceneries, encased my shedding, the morphing, the reaching for Creativity.

My humble, sturdy sidekick fell silent in the late February 2020.
“Cocoon spat me out” I said, I felt like a cicada freshly out of his, with soft pale green wings that harden overnight.
100 months in my modest silver cocoon, had brought me to where I always dreamt I’d visit.
We took one long ride together, thousands sunsets enclosed us along the way.

A wave on a cloudy beach.
Windshield rain shadows on a journal.
Cloudy sky through a driver seat.
A tree in rain through a windshield.
An abstract drawing in afternoon light.
Night Ocean.
Gardenia blossoms obstructed by leaves.
Artworks in a studio.
A windshield pattern on rainy drive.
Swans against water ripples.
A gardenia bouquet in an artist studio.
A self portrait on a curved mirror.
Textile art work in studio.
A rear view mirror self portrait.
Works in progress in artist studio.
A car parked on a rural road at dusk.

This post is dedicated, an ode to my sidekick, we had parted our ways in early April.
Photos are mostly taken with iPhone, all edited using vsco B5 filter.
All artworks are from the series “Spider Lily Red” (2012 – ).
The second selfie: “one eye” is a happenstance, I am so very much a ‘commoner’.
The sales man did not receive my vendetta; figured him being him would be the punishment enough ;)

Work in Progress.

Japanese Apricot blossoms detail.
Artist in studio.

Time flies, but you are the pilot.
– KLM Airlines paper napkin.

Japanese Apricot calyx detail.

The pilot, during a break after a long flight through fine and foul, low fuels, engine troubles, and turbulences with oxygen masks dangling – there also had been a few instances of emergency landings (details withheld) – is photographed on her recent 55th birthday, striking a “mountain peak pose” standing amidst papers for a project named “Spider Lily Red“, with a bouquet of Bunchflower Daffodils, sandwiched by pictures of Japanese Apricot, the first two to start off the seasons of scented blossoms.
She is captured donning a dyed jacket, one of her earlier creations, and a smile that turned up impromptu, as she pondered upon the monumental tasks, the project and the flight, both work in progress, much like the pilot.

Thank you for your visit, and here’s to your monumental flight!!

FAQ: What took you so long?

The year in review.

Port view from a car window.
Hydrangea from a car window.
Ocean front sunset.
A curved mirror self portrait.

August 10, 2017. A day before Mountains Day, a national holiday only a few years old, I hopped on my little scarred Honda and headed out roughly towards west. Compelled by the briefness of summer, I wanted to absorb the scorching of the season as much as humanly possible.

A Spider Lily Blossom at dawn.
A Spider Lily Petal detail.

Soon after somehow I took the turn I did not plan. General direction is right I said, my motto for a game I call “intentionally getting lost”. Just so long as I won’t miss out on the precious August sun for too long.
Well the path rode into the forest and quickly narrowed, to a single lane just wide enough for my compact. Winding as a large serpent would, on and on through the thick of woods that blocked even the brightest of the light. “Always a screw up, destined to miss.” An inner dialogue took the passenger’s seat like an inseparable old friend and worse yet at each hairpin, I grew deeper in agreement with her.

A lily bouquet by a car window.
A coffee cup by the ocean.

Then quite suddenly the serpent spat me out, into the bursting of the summer where I found a community probably the smallest I’ve ever seen. Tacked away in a valley between mountains are just a handful of housing structures, only some inhabited, lives held together with artful display of faded woods and rusted tins. Face to face with the unfolding quiet gem, with midday asphalt beneath my feet, I found myself alone in a place where leaves can be heard, streams carry life, the sun warms your shoulders and butterflies are free.

Art work in progress.
A coffee cup at a port.

Zine One (Revisited)


A small sculpted wood.
Head lights in a wing mirror.
An artist's hand.

All photographed in 2015.
The photo 1 and 5, respectively:
A Wing (1996) – wood, silver.
An Ally (2014) – self portrait (as a child), pencil on paper, detail.
(Please allow me to lightheartedly add: ‘one eye’ is a happenstance.)

A small bird.
A pencil drawing of a child and a bird.

Back in May 2015, I did a post titled “Zine One”. At that time I was psyched to put together images of what I made up until then like a casual portfolio and bind them into something between a magazine and a photo book, something creative while keeping it easy and informal. I tested a few printing options and got kind of disappointed with all. So I dropped the whole thing and deleted the post :(

Fast forward to December 2016, while I was not looking the idea revived itself. to create a series of small booklets with a personal touch and pack them with the excitement of creativity bit. Photos are the ones loosely in consideration for the issue one, put together as an experiment with a new spin. (What I picked in May’15 turned into a photo series. )

Thank you for your visit. Keep warm if applicable, stay cool, and enjoy the festivities!!

Additional note: Entry edited – shortened – on June 10, 2018, while the idea still alive in back burner. Time flies; savor the fruits. :)

Artist at Work, July 2016.


Artist in Studio.

Sat, sipped, pondered: will this look okay in red? July 11, 2016, a moment before diving in.
The project in question: Spider Lily Red, at a delicate transition from pencil-on-paper to acid-dye-on-silk.

Artist at work, 2005, Kawasaki.

Artist at work.

“Is it ‘flowing’?”
Yours truly, trying on one of her prototypes, which, a year later, became a piece called “Aqua Dragon Dress 2”. What she’s standing in is called “pre-relocation mess”.
Autumn 2005, Kawasaki, Japan.

Self Reflection 1986

Self portrait on a convex mirror.

First posted on Myspace (it was fun there, learned a lot, thanks!!) in July 2008, the photo was taken around 1986 in my apartment in central Tokyo. In case you wonder, that is me in the reflection.

My 20’s was in 1980’s, and I spent large portion of the decade pretending I was in the 1960’s, thinking there was a genuine “creative””cultural””explosion”happening in the era I thought I “missed out” on.

The convex round mirror has a person’s name on it, the scribble was acquired at a meet and greet of a band I thought was very cool to “get”, looking back, I was falling in a trap of validating my coolness by liking a socially well recognized (but not too well, cuz you see, obscurity is also cool) figure in one of the “creative field”.

Trouble with the stance is that, the moment you out source your existential dilemma you end up compromising your creative freedom. But no worries, if you deeply desire such freedom Life will conspire and arrange circumstances that will catapult you out of such dependency. May hurt a bit but totally worth it.
My story, anyways. Took a bit while like everything else that is worthwhile to attain. Lemme quote myself…

“No more heroes; everybody off the pedestal.”
– me, a status on Myspace, 2006.

Published on February 16, last edited March 14, 2021.