Today. Calling up the O-chan as I paint.
Me: More-Sea More-Sea…
Tag Archives: self-portrait
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.
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.
Time flies, but you are the pilot.
– KLM Airlines paper napkin.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Sea’s Always With You.
…and Creativity beckoned.
From Top:
1 – With my first digital camera given to me at work, in my apartment with a view of Mt. Fuji – the sun would set behind the Mt.Famous, with its rays fanning like a postcard divine shot, Kawasaki, Japan, November 5, 2005, just 10 days before moving out, away from what had grown too familiar.
What you see here is my kind of oceanic decor, to keep me connected with what was becoming increasingly important to me.
Originally posted on VSCO on November 23, 2017.
2 – Lunch break, Shinbashi, Tokyo, October 2005.
This image is uploaded the first time online here. Reason being, my trousers / legs look foreshortened in the most unflattering way. Took some time to get over myself in that regard.
I think it’s an interesting picture, a snapshot taken during a lunch hour expedition. I was at my last to date office job. It was also two years before the iPhone launch, if you recall, then we only had cell phones with texting and some limited browsing capabilities. Right behind me there is a public phone with a phone book hang beneath it.
Shinbashi was (as I don’t know how it’s been since the “new normal”) a bustling business district, commuter trains / subways jam-packed in the mornings, station attendants had to push people in so the door could close. Great place for lunch though; competition among eateries were quite high.
The colors of my (kind of office) attire are my favorite autumn tone then, and not “symbolism” if you are into speculating that sort of things. Now that I got on the subject like caressing a landmine…my line of thinking is that, Unwavering Positive Intent (UPI hereinafter) is stronger than any symbolism thingy. Just thought I’d share that with those of you inquisitive types.
UPI arguably, in any and all instances, is hard to pull. As you may have noticed, oft-present great gap between that and the reality could crush your spirit at any moment. For that extra resiliency/buoyancy I think it’d be helpful if one’s inner conflicts – e.g. dissatisfactions, disillusionments and other discordant ideas and emotions – are reasonably resolved – reasonably, for, as a living human I don’t think it is possible, or is even desirable to resolve them entirely.
So that Inspiration can have an easier time flowing through you like a Loyal Guide who knows you the most, and always in your corner rooting for you.
Personally, I UPI proudly imperfectly. I do my best for the day, then go consult with The Sea, now just a short stroll away.
The “T Shirt” (circa 2000) is an earlier version of my “painted” series – red silk chiffon is double layered with different parts of letter “T” painted. I chose T because the letter looked like a cross, altho it is not. It’s a play, it is being creatively flirty.
What I noticed for the first time ever as I write this on May 18, 2023 is the T behind me right above my head, with its axis perfectly aligned with the lowercase t on an inner layer inlay of my shirt. One of them coincidences, yet again.
(Creativity Is Flirty!!)
The shoulder purse is the earlier version of “Flag Bags”, possibly another theoretical landmine.
Why do I do what I do, *standing in my truth alone out in the cold? There must have been way more secure and certain paths I could have chosen.
Time to time I’d ask myself knowing all too well why, and quite simply so: because Creativity beckoned.
Published on February 12, 2021.
Made private on December 30, 2022 at 20:35.
Re-published with the additional photo 2, revised text and title, and even new URL – bad practice, sorry for any inconveniences – on May 23, 2023 at 18:36.
*Note on 26May23: Just thought to add; not coming from a needy-martyr place. Hard to convey in online writing, but the flavor is teasingly lighthearted.
More on this in near future.
01Jul23: Added the line “(Creativity Is Flirty!!)”
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Zine One (Revisited)
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.)
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.
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.
“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.
Inspired Moments, 2014.
May a rainbow follow your stride…
An Ally, a process.
“An Ally”, self portrait as a child – 2014, pencil on paper.
May 10, 2014
May 11, 2014
“Souls who are closely related in one lifetime tend to meet in another lifetime. If the relationship was one of love, then the love persists. If one of enmity, enmity must be overcome. If one of obligation, the obligation must be met.”
May 16, 2014 (completed)
Top photo is made public for the first time, the two others uploaded to Flickr around the same time as were taken. The words in the middle photo is supposedly (ie. I wasn’t present when he did) uttered by Edgar Cayce, jotted down years ago as they appeared in a 70’s film.
This is drawn from a photo of me circa 1974.
As seen in the first photo, initially me the girl was looking directly at you. Then I was inspired to add a bird, a fragment of it, and as I added the “winged messenger”, somehow the girl’s eyes progressed into the gaze-into-space look.
It was not intentional; I was in the flow so to speak, that’s what took me there.
—
I harbored a rather uncanny intention since quite early on, that stated itself firmly, “this time around I am going to choose all my educational materials. I will feed myself only what I feel drawn to and see what kind of person I am gonna turn into. It’s an experiment!!”
This time around. That’s right, you heard me right.
No, I dunno what that means. Several decades since, haven’t figured out the secret of the Universe just yet.
However, there have been handful plus instances / recollections of the similar sentiment, that tells me not only of the possible multiple lifetimes bit but also of me having memories of the future. Which made me ask a very uncomfortable question: how does the ‘time’ work then?*
I was a thinking kid, gazing into the space looking for answers.
Several decades since, as a solution to my such predicament I’ve developed skill set of letting the question marks hang in the air so I can gaze upon them like they are flashy Christmas ornaments.
I’ll know what’s what when I’m done with the “this time around”.
Until then, I be busy with the physicality of me; the ways they make me feel, the colors, the flavors, of despair, of delight, the sand beneath my feet, a chocolate I wasngonna eat. Fatigued by gossipy rural Japan towns people**, comforted by a small number of you who support me/my work***…
My heart that sunk, may soar again any minute. I came back, just perhaps, to arrive at the most important question of my life: how does it feel to come alive, to savor it all, to birth again and again into the purity of the moment as if nothing could deter me, nothing could taint me.
Grammatically incorrect, the last sentence does not end with a question mark; they’d all gone out of stock, every single one of them.
*”There is only one time. There is no timeline you cannot rise above and see the entire timeline and every part of it is alive.” – John Van Auken, Edgar Cayce Foundation, on Ed’s take on the subject of time, from a YouTube video about Atlantis that I cannot find. Interesting input I thought, who wouldn’t want to hang more question marks.
**Just thought I’d throw that in there, as the issue seems to trouble too many people. Lemme propose this important idea: your assumptions about me reveal more about you. And wrong is wrong, even if everyone around you is doing it.
***Just so that you know; you are profusely thanked by me without your knowledge.
Written: November 08 – 30, 2022.
Published on: November 30, 2022 at 18:19 JST.
Edits:
December 08, 2022 at 14:11-20:11 JST.
Edited out the film name from the paragraph 1. For the following reason but also, to simplify. Objectivity oft. arrives with a lag.
Prior to publishing this post I somehow didn’t think to double-check the movie plot as I usually would, to make sure that the mentioning of it won’t sound like I am passive-aggressively ill-wishing someone. Although not an angel, I don’t go there with myself, I take care so that I don’t have to. I was thinking about how ‘karma’, for lack of a better term, too often gets repeated as if nothing could be resolved. “Collective learned helplessness” may as well be the term. And from that place we then end up striking at each other…
Furthermore, the internet seems to have descended into a hotbed of trolls, haters, and otherwise very nosy people. Understandably as a result, many of us may have grown jumpy-tender-triggered weary. But here’s the thing:
It wasn’t like we were living in utopia until internet. Rather, the net brought our woundedness to the fore, more so than ever. In my line of thinking, that then means an opportunity. For there, in every wound is a seed, no matter how deep / old the cut, of our potentiality to become more, than ever before because of it.
In any case there are so much more to the story, anyone’s life story, than meets the eye, and those who take sickly interest in someone else’s life might really wanna have a look, instead at your self. You may eventually find your best friend lookin’ right back at you. Yes, you may be that lucky after all.
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