Toothpaste and Armed Robbery

Another new painting that I recently finished documenting.  It is my favorite of all of my paper pieces.  I call it "Poles" because the poles in the painting help it have more space.  Making space in my painting is what I am working on the most lately.  It is very hard for me because I get really carried away with the detail and colors in those details that I can't often see the big picture until I put it away for a while and look at it with fresh eyes.  Documenting paintings also give me a fresh view.  The importance of having a "fresh eye" makes it also important to have critiques with other people (who inevitably have a different perspective.)

I am looking at artist residencies.  I haven't been to one yet, but after these crazy Japanese shenanigans are over, I will apply to a TON so that I will hopefully get into one or two.  This week I found this website  Trans Artists.  It seems to be a good reference for artist residencies.  I haven't done must research to know of any better but I will keep my feelers out!  It is important to remember that artists get rejected from residencies more than they get accepted.  The more we apply, the more chance we have of going!

Last weekend I told you that I bought earrings from a cool artist.  Her shop is called Tantaka.  Click here to see some cool earrings.  The ones I bought are not on the website, but that link will take you to earrings I would like to own.  I know the website is all in Japanese but there is enough English to navigate it I think.  It does make me wish I could read Japanese!  When I bought the earrings she asked me if I could read Japanese.  I said, "only a little," so she told me that in my bag were directions for cleaning my earrings by using baking soda.  I have been cleaning my wedding ring with toothpaste for years with super results so I was not surprised to learn a similar DIY method.  Baking soda really is magic.  You can do ANYTHING with it.  Clean anything, de-stink your fridge, make homemade toothpaste (<------click for a link to a cool blog about sustainable living.  This particular link has cool recipes for toothpaste and dish washing liquid!)

Onto some thoughts lately about Japan.  I have lost enthusiasm for learning Japanese.  It is very frustrating.  The more I learn, the less I know.  Why can't they speak Italian in Japan?  Or Spanish?  My countdown for my US visit is at a month and four days.  Yay!  All English for three weeks and lots of fun and art!  Both Mikel and I are keeping each other going, venting once in a while about how difficult it is to be illiterate and from a totally different culture, but also having good humor about it.  Usually it is easy to have good humor.

For example, this morning a man robbed a bank at knife point (guns are illegal here except for hunting) in a near-by city.  By "near-by" I mean an hour away.  No one was hurt.  The man got away with lots of money.  Of course this is serious, but here it is SERIOUSLY breaking news.  We had an official meeting about it today with the teachers and watched some of the news at lunch.  The robber was apparently a "foreigner" (probably a local Brazilian man, they think-- there is a large population in that city) with "big eyes" (as all of us foreigners have).  In the US, if someone was robbed at knife-point it might make the evening news and it would never disrupt a school day unless someone was very near by (like around the corner) or someone was injured.  This is a VERY safe country so if something like this happens, everyone, for lack of a more fun word, spazzes out.

Whew!  It feels good to get a long blog out there.   Time for to make some worksheets, look for residencies to apply to and, <> a little Japanese study?