​Last month I spent two weeks in Japan and the last day before leaving Kyoto I went looking for a cup of coffee and something edible to go with the intent of spending the day packing; nobody seemed to be open until eleven o’clock except this little café that I had been passing by all week…this time I looked through the window and spotted a coffee grinder and then noticed a guy waving to me to come in so I did. It turned out that he and another guy both spoke English and had both been to the USA around thirty years ago, but didn’t know each other then. One of them had been a priest and gave it up to go to San Francisco and become a hippy and smoke pot (find enlightenment), now is a landscape designer and has a mountain retreat Eco-village,and the other had come to Oregon to visit and been to Portland and Mount Hood, and said he was a writer. He had worked for a magazine for twenty years in Tokyo then moved to Kyoto, and now is a freelance writer. I asked him if he wrote haiku and he said yes, so I asked if he would like to hear a haiku that I had written recently. It was a blast talking with these guys and I presented them with my business cards (very important formality in Japan) and they looked up me up on Google and everybody in the Café looked at the posts on his phone and thought I must be famous! I told them all about my upcoming show at a gallery downtown and promised to send them gallery fliers before my show. The writer really liked my haiku and asked if I would like to have it translated into Japanese and translated two for me! Such fun on my last day. New totally unexpected friends that I hope to see again when I return. Here are some pics of this wonderful experience. 

Its an honor to be asked to demonstrate Japanese Woodblock Printmaking at the Portland Art Museum, Saturday January 27th at 3pm and Sunday January 28th at 1pm.  This fair is an opportunity for education, networking, and sales.  Hope to see you there!


https://portlandartmuseum.org/printfair/

When you wake in the morning to hammering outside and you go to the computer and find this...
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www.okujapan.com/trips/nakasendo-trail-1?gclid=CjwKCAiA0IXQBRA2EiwAMODilymG5ZwMPE_IEiFt4iHnGra-Ak1KVukHgU7mbGbriAC0SjmdQOffcRoCuJoQAvD_BwE

Apparently Walt has the Nakasendo on his mind, with an urge to achieve something.  The hammering is "Arrens Cabin".