Katsushika Hokusai
Mood:  lyrical
What a great way to spend a Saturday afternoon with two great friends at an inspiring art exhibit. Hokusai, Japan?s best-known artist, is ironically Japan?s least ?Japanese? artist. He lived from 1760-1849. As one website put it: ?He was a thoroughly Bohemian artist: cocky, quarrelsome, restless, aggressive, and sensational?? Maybe that?s why I have had his most famous piece on my wall in one form or another since the 60?s. It is called the BIG WAVE

Hokusai began studying woodblock printing at the age of 15. I really liked the fact that he signed his pieces: ?The Old Man Mad About Drawing? at the end of his life. On the average Japanese only moved once in their lifetime, Hokusai moved 93 times in his long life. The series 36 VIEWS OF MT. FUJI are certainly the best-known Hokusai prints.

Hokusai was one of the most prolific of all ukiyo-e artists. At the end of his life he had produced more than 30,000 print designs. Shinobu, Yoshie, and i got to enjoy studying over 200 of his best works. I was most enthralled with his illustrated books. I am quite sure that they were the precursers of the ever popular Japanese manga. We three all wanted to break the glass and turn the pages of his books they were that enthralling.

I just love this quote of his: "From the age of five I have had a mania for sketching the forms of things. From about the age of fifty I produced a number of designs, yet of all I drew prior to the age of seventy there is truly nothing of great note. At the age of seventy-two I finally apprehended something of the true quality of birds, animals, insects, fish and of the vital nature of grasses and trees. Therefore, at eighty I shall have made some progress, at ninety I shall have penetrated even further the deeper meaning of things, at one hundred I shall have become truly marvelous, and at one hundred and ten, each dot, each line shall surely possess a life of its own. I only beg that gentlemen of sufficiently long life take care to note the truth of my words."

May we all continue to grow and develop as well and enthusiastically as Hokusai did.


Love, love, love - love is all there is.

I have to let go of the need to know so much. What we can know is so small—the holiness around is so large. Now I trust in simplicity, simplicity and love.

HINDU SAGE