Showing posts with label whale. Show all posts
Showing posts with label whale. Show all posts

Friday, May 8, 2015

forget the calendar

I'm not a big fan of giving gifts or sending cards just because of some date on the calendar. Mother's Day is problematic for me for various reasons. Though I had loving parents, I spent most of my childhood in school dorms, and after I reached adulthood, my mother and I mostly lived on opposite sides of the Pacific. Then she died much earlier than she should have, leaving behind far too few memories to comfort me.

Furthermore, I certainly don't want my own kids (both of whom I kept close to my side while they were growing up) to express any appreciation they might have for me just because it's "Mother's Day." Although.... if that's the only day I can get any appreciation (assuming I deserve any), I will take it gratefully.

So, back to my own mother. One of the few-but-sweet memories I have of very early childhood is of my mother singing to us kids after she had tucked us in bed. I would sing those same songs softly to myself in later childhood, and even as late as early adulthood, during lonely or desperate nights when I lived far from home among strangers in a land that was strange to me.

Thursday, June 12, 2014

more etegami uchiwa (bamboo flat fans)



I'm almost ready for summer! (ps: I fixed the misspelling on the clover fan after I took this photo. embarrassed.)

Thursday, April 4, 2013

time beings

I've started reading A TALE FOR THE TIME BEING by Ruth Ozeki and am getting quite caught up in the story. I'm only 20% through it, and I've already marked several lines that beg to be illustrated. I love it when this happens. I will try to send this one to Ruth if I can figure out where to send it to.

Thursday, October 25, 2012

moby-dick

This one is for my son. He is currently absorbed in reading Moby-Dick, the "Great American Novel" by Herman Melville. It's heavy stuff, but has plenty of material to inspire etegami.

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

the first thing on my to-do list

a whale at sunrise

the groundhog








Here are two more etegami (illustrating the same maxim) to add to the Wisdom Series, and now I think I'll take a little break. Maybe I'll do a Foolishness Series. What do you think? I know a lot more about foolishness than I do about wisdom.

Again, thanks to Patricia Ryan Madson for the maxims that inspired this series.