The Shigaraki Ceramic Cultural Park is covered in wonderful artwork, all made with clay! Here are some pictures of my walk around the park. There are hundreds of pieces all made by the artists that spent time here! Hopefully I will have a piece here soon. I'll try to include artists names when I can.
Hi everyone! Here is a video I made about the Japanese Alphabets. There are 3 alphabets used in the Japanese language: Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji. My friend pointed out to me that some of the katakana I point out in the video are actually kanji in disguise!
UPDATE** My friend Shannon clarified a few things about the languagefor me:
"Katakana
is really only used for specific words that can't translate, and to
adopt foreign words into the language. You will never see a kanji or
hiragana written in katakana.
Sometimes as well, the
Japanese don't even use some kanji. For simplicity's sake, you'll see
it written in hiragana. For example, 頑張って。 ganbatte (Go for it!/ Good luck!) in Kanji form. But
when I talk and text with friends, they more often than not type
がんばって、the hiragana phonetic version of the word. It's a lot easier than
sitting and handwriting those strokes. (Although, texting makes kanji
easier as well).
There are tons and tons and tons of
kanji out there. But a lot of it is unused or ignored, only used in
certain levels of writing. Japanese is a language based so hugely on
context! You could say two word sentences and everyone would know what
you mean, if the context stays the same. I hope this all helps!!! Good
luck!! XD or rather, がんばって!
In the town I live in, Shigaraki, potters make figures called Tanuki, anthropomorphic clay figures of the Japanese
Racoon Dog, a real animal.
They are a specialty of the town of Shigaraki! Potters have been making them since the early 20th century. And they are everywhere!A funny story I found involves a visit by the emperor. This excerpt is from the website: http://en.japantravel.com/shiga/shigaraki/10404 "Once when the emperor visited the town the local people were concerned
that they were too few in number to provide a rousing welcome for their
illustrious guest, so they got the idea of lining up hundreds of tanuki
on the sides of the road. I bet that made the emperor smile!"
They
are a symbol of luck and spritely mischief. In many Japanese folk tales they play tricks on people and they can even turn into humans to fool people! They are similar to the many tailed foxes, or kitsune found in Japanese Anime, such as Evee and Nine Tails in Pokemon!
Modern artists have also put their own spin on these figures. You can find many examples at the sculpture park where I am staying.
I went to a small festival in town on August 24th. There was a taiko performance. Taiko
refers to the large drums as well as to the name of the drumming
ensemble.
Long ago they were used in war to motivate soldiers, but now they are
used to entertain or add drama to events and performances. They can be
very loud, but are so much fun to watch. Here is a video that I didn't take of a group with younger children in it! They are fantastic! It is a bit long but they look like they are having an awesome time.
I went to another festival yesterday! There are many in August. This was
at shine in Shigaraki. They are doing a local dance. Each dance is
distinct to the area. Children learn it in school and everyone, young
and old dance it at festivals.
I also love the paper lanterns! They are beautiful and are used at festivals, ceremonies, and even outside businesses to draw attention to goods.They are also hung at shrines and provide a wonderful warm light. Some are made of bamboo and paper while others are made with wire and paper. Now, most are electric but they used to have candles or flames in them. There are also floating water lanterns, used at certain festivals, and sky lanterns, which act as mini hot air balloons! I do not have pictures of the sky or floating lanters yet, but I hope to go to more festivals and see them soon!
Welcome to Shigaraki Japan! That is the town I am staying in while I am here. It is in Shiga prefecture which is in the South of the big Island of Japan. It is about 1 hour from Kyoto and an hour and a half from Osaka.
In the video below I take you around the Shigaraki Ceramic Cultural Park, my home for the next 3 months. I hope you enjoy it!
It has been a while. I am sorry for that. But I just saw this beautiful video on Devour: Ceramic's Masters. Now, these men are masters of their art. They are skilled and make beautiful work. I can only hope to one day posses a fraction of the skill that they have.
What caught my eye was Devour's description of the video:"This isn't Color Me Mine. Watching these ceramics masters creating beautiful pottery will make you have some serious art envy."
One day, far from now, I will go into my complicated feelings about Color Me Mine, but not today. What got to me was the " ...will make you have some serious art envy.". The thing is, I didn't feel envy. My first thought was. "I need to go to the studio and try that technique!" These masters are all using techniques I learned or at least tried. I got excited. I got the I CAN do that! feeling.
I'm not discouraged by their skill. I know I could never reach that level, at first, if at all. But that did not come to mind at first. My first thoughts wereI NEED to get to the studio. I NEED to try that! I WANT to try that. If I don't go to the studio now I will explode! I am so Happy right now.
Maybe I am supposed to be doing this. Working with clay, making art. It is nice to have that feeling.
**Update: Thanks for the heads up about the typo in my title. I fixed it in the post, but when I share the post on other sites the typo stays. Not sure how to fix that. Any ideas?
