floundering wordplay

I first got into painting flounders when I was trying to come up with an etegami for a friend going through a rough patch in life. And, as you know by now, I have a great weakness for wordplay. The fun thing about flounders is that they suit wordplay in both English and Japanese.

The English wordplay in the etegami at the top of the post needs no explanation. In Japanese, the word for flounder is hirame (literally: flat eyes). Twitch it just a little, and it becomes hirameki, the word for inspiration. In the Japanese etegami directly above, I stretched the wordplay to include words that rhyme with hirameki. In fact, the lines were taken from random stanzas of a very jolly song written by someone I only know as BYO, for a group I only know as A.F.R.O.  I don't even know what they look like.

Translated into English, the words on the card say: Turn inspiration (hirameki) into excitement (tokimeki); turn inspiration (hirameki) into brilliance (kagayaki); turn inspiration (hirameki) into commotion (zawameki); turn inspiration (hirameki) into surprise (odoroki).  I'm tempted to use this etegami as my logo.

today's eyeball

The literal translation of the Japanese expression kyou no medama is "today's eyeball." Variations include "the eyeball of the menu," or "the eyeball of the festival," or "the eyeball of the event." It refers to a particular thing of special interest or value that is meant to attract customers or participants within a larger context-- the keynote speaker at a conference, a popular season-only item on a restaurant menu, and so on.

The silly series of etegami posted here was inspired by this expression. The wordplay going on would be clear to any Japanese speaker. A fried egg ("sunny side up" as we say in English) is called a "fried eyeball." And the eyeball creature bathing in the cracked rice bowl is Daddy Eyeball, a popular and very familiar character from the Japanese manga series Gegege no Kitaro by the late Shigeru Mizuki. At the top right is a bunch of fresh-caught fish with bulging eyes, and at the bottom right is a pair of toy pop-out eyeball glasses. I may add a few more to the series if I ever get unbearably bored with nothing better to do.  Maybe you can help me by suggesting more eyeball wordplay.

turnips are in season

I learned to appreciate turnips late in life. Like a lot of other things. Like puns.

take a tabi with me

Years ago, I purchased a pair of tabi socks, which, if you've never heard of them before, are ankle-high, with a separation between the big toe and other toes. They are worn in Japan by both men and women, with traditional thonged Japanese footwear like zori and geta. Tabi are usually very white, suitable for formal situations like tea ceremony. The ones I bought had a traditional-but-flashy design, and I meant to (but never did) send them to a young niece of mine in the US where they wouldn't shock anyone.

I came across these tabi the other day while sorting the storage room, and decided to take them out of their packaging for a closer look. There was a foot-shaped stiff board inside each sock, and when I pulled them out, I could feel them begging to be made into etegami-collages. So that's what I did.

For the left foot, I played with the Japanese proverb "tabi wa michizure, Yo wa nasake" (Just as a journey is improved by traveling companions, life is improved by compassion/ tender human feelings.) The word tabi (journey) has the same sound as the word for the aforementioned two-toed traditional socks. So I switched the original character for journey with the two characters that mean tabi socks. (I'm so clever. ha ha)

For the right foot, I quoted the last stanza of Robert Louis Stevenson's poem Winter-Time, and decorated it with snow-flakes.

Black are my steps on silver sod; 
Thick blows my frosty breath abroad; 
And tree and house, and hill and lake, 
Are frosted like a wedding-cake.

hedgehogs

It's been a while since I added to my animal groups series, but I recently received a request for hedgehogs, so here they are. When there is more than one choice for the collective noun, I use the one with the most interesting sound. "A prickle of hedgehogs" seems almost too good to be true, but I LOVE the expression, don't you?

To see the other etegami in my animal groups series, type "animal groups" into the Search This Blog box in the right column. You can order the tote bag here.

 

fox nap

The ICCPS (International Chinese Calligraphic & Brush Painters Society), which has scheduled an exhibit to take place in Australia later this summer, has decided to invite works from etegami artists for the purpose of showcasing this less-known art expression that shares many of the methods and materials of the calligraphers and sumi-e artists that make up the society, and to encourage connections between them.

So I painted a simple fox using the most basic and traditional of etegami materials (washi paper, gansai pigments, sumi ink, and ink brushes), because we have these in common with calligraphers and sumi-e artists. Once the etegami was finished, however, the image begged to be made into a throw pillow.  I sent the original etegami to the  ICCPS exhibit, and the pillow is available from my RedBubble gallery.

waffle