I’m back from our family trip where I was able to catch up on some late repairs. Now I’m on to the next step - lacquering with authentic Japanese Urushi.

 

My urushi dish. I’ve been using urushi for over 10 years and only have gotten a rash twice (this was due to long exposure time). Afterwards, I was eating a sandwhich and realized that I had some urushi on my finger tips so I actually ate a bit of urushi! This reminded me of a story Kinya once told me when he was apprenticing under Chikusen Tamai. Some of the workers used to eat a bit of urushi a little at a time so as to build up immunity against it. Unfortunately that didn’t work. They blew up like a balloon and had o be taken to the hospital. My guess, from all the urushi repairs I’ve done, is that about 95% of the population may be severely allergic to it even after it’s cured. Most people can play the flute after two weeks of curing. I can play it in two hours.

I may put a thin wash of urushi on the new Keizan bindings to match the older ones that were done in Japan.
Some of the joints need refurbishing and tightening.

The bell on this 1.6 had been opened up a bit. I didn’t do the work but whoever it was did a beautiful job. The tonic was probably originally flat and opening it up raised the pitch. It also made this flute loud. It has quite a honk!

I went to pick up the kids afterwards for a trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to see the new exhibit - 5000 years of Japanese Art. Here the kids are contemplating a 15th century gold leaf Japanese screen. It was magnificent.

Then we went to the Modern Art wing to see some of my favorite works. Here, Jet is pondering Henri Matisse’s famous “Dancers”.

They were inspired to do some of their own original works.

Sasa shares her “Portrait of a 6 year-old Girl”.

Jet named his piece “The Dog”.

Today was fully of nostalgia. It reminded me of my college days when studied art. I once traveled through out Europe drawing in museums. I still have a sketch I did in the Louvre in Paris.

I’m thinking of changing my blog title to “My life rules!