That Time I Got Reincarnated as an Art Student

It’s election night.  Every election for the last 20 years I spent overseas, where you have a nice sense of detachment, and the added benefit of living 13-ish hours in the future from the chaos.  By the time the polls close, usually I’m just beginning my Wednesday morning.  This year, the counting is hardly begun, but I’m supposed to go to bed and hope I wake up in a world where American democracy still functions.  Although I haven’t been what you might call an active participant in the democratic process before, I have been paying attention, so I’m pretty damn nervous tonight.  And since it has been a hellalong time since my last blog, I figured distracting myself by working on a post might not be a bad idea.  So here we are.

It's hard to believe three months have gone by since I moved to Minneapolis.  The reason it’s been a hellalong time since I blogged is because I simply haven't had time.  You see, I am now the protagonist of an isekai* anime.  I have transmigrated into a new person.  That's right.  This is that time I got reincarnated as an art student.

This is notably different from the first time I "went to college."  When I was an undergrad, I went to a public, state university, which just happened to have a school of art within in.  So technically I was an art student, but I was also an education major, and the vast majority of my learning wasn't focused on the visual arts.  These undergrad bitches here have no fucking idea!  When I was taking geology and logic courses, they’re just taking more art.  But that’s okay, because now as an MFA student, I also get to eat, sleep, and breathe art.  I’m just doing it following up a whole other career.

From Deep Time, Amanda Hamilton's show at Bethel University 

It seems like in my first incarnation on campus, financial aid used to consider grad students taking 9 hours to be full-time.  Well, I’ve got 14 this semester, as long as you don’t count the course I’m auditing, which seems kind of insane, but I’m having fun, so at least I can say I’m not suffering from insanity.  Yet.  

To be fair, though, most of those hours are my mentorship.  The foundation of MCAD’s program is developing your studio practice under the supervision of a mentor.  We each individually reviewed the list, contacted and interviewed artists who we believed could benefit our work, and chose the one we wanted to work with.  Mine is the amazing Amanda Hamilton.  Each week we meet and review what I’ve been working on and my goals for the semester.  Last week we shook things up and went to the Walker and spent some time with their permanent collection, which is currently curated on the theme of place…I wish I could take credit for knowing that and planning to go for that reason, since it’s a major theme for my work, but I just figured we could visit their artist book collection (which we did, and it was fantastic).

I spend a lot of time in my studio.  Before I started my MFA, I didn't really think I needed a studio.  Since I never ate at the dinner table, it became my de facto studio space, and back then, that was good enough.  But now I have these three walls to tape up my works-in-progress, as well as some of my favorite past work.  I have two big tables to spread out scraps of paper and a low shelf with short divisions to hold my paper.  I have windows to store my books, and to grow plants for (hopefully) making dye at a future date.  It feels comfortable, and I like the fact that when all I'm going to do in a day is work on my art, I still have a place to go.  I have a reason to get out of my apartment.**

Garlands, by Stephanie Hunder

When I'm not in my studio, I'm usually in the printshop.  Sweet fuck, it feels good to be a printmaker again!  My work over the last seven years used collage with gouache paint, so it may come as a shock, but I always used to identify as a printmaker.  When I was planning what I'd be doing over the course of my program, I planned to get reacquainted with printmaking, with the intention of moving on to other things in future semesters.  Now I just...kind of what to keep printing.  I mean, I've been doing mixed media with my prints, and I still want to make installations, I just...want to do those things through my prints.  I think a big part of that is the faculty here.  The professor I TA for is fantastic, the professor whose class I’m auditing inspires me a lot with what she does (her work is directly above this paragraph, from her show this fall), and there are even more faculty I haven’t had the chance to work with much yet (fingers crossed for the spring semester!)  Oh, and the shop is probably 3 times as big as what we had at UMKC (and the shop there was already the best facilities in the program).

Ponca, Ponca Camp, by Henry Payer, at the newly reopened Joslyn Art Museum

Almost all the reading I do comes back to either art or aesthetic theory.  Okay, not all the reading I do, because cheetahs don't change our spots, and since Princess began reading the Dresden Files last fall I've been itching to catch up with her.  BUT THE READING I DO FOR SCHOOL IS ART RELATED.  How to critique well.  How different artists are influenced by their context.  Major theoretical underpinnings of artistic practice...and going back to look at a collection I’m familiar with like the Joslyn, with new knowledge, is pretty eye-opening.  I even have a little time to do my own research.  The library itself just amazes me every time I walk in there.  Want a book of anatomical illustrations from different periods of history to inspire your body-related artwork?  They've got it.  Want to check out some artist's books?  They've got those, too.  They even have quirky librarians that are super excited to talk about whatever you are looking for, whether it's historical costumes or paper making.

AND OH!  That reminded me of the print library.  You see, once upon a time, MCAD was part of the Minneapolis Institute of Art.  Even though they are now separate institutions, they are attached at the hip, and MiA has a freaking fantastic print library that we are able to visit.  I've only been there once, for a class field trip, but it left a pretty big impression, and that's just one small part of the museum.  The rest of it is just as good.  Since I got here, I've seen an exhibition on collage, learned some new mokuhanga artists, watched Buddhist nuns paint a sand mandala - SOMETHING I NEVER SAW IN SPITE OF LIVING IN MONGOLIA TEN YEARS AND TRAVELING IN TIBET - and now they have an exhibition of Toulouse-Lautrec prints and paintings.  Also, I voted there a week and a half ago.  Because where better to vote than an art museum, especially when you can do it early???***

In my so-called spare time, I go to art events.  It's a bit like being back in Japan - there are too many events, and not enough time to go to them all.  Also, being a student takes up just as much time as being a teacher.  But I've been able to go to my mentor's artist talk in September, and last month painted while listening to Christopher Harrison talk about his work.  So far, my favorite was Nicola Lopez’ show at Highpoint Printmaking, because she combines printmaking with installation, and it’s given me so many ideas.

So yeah, as The Evil One observed, I am enjoying the hell out of this degree.  Far more than I did any previous one.  If anything, I know it’s going to be over before I’m ready to go back to real life.  But for that matter, who knows if I’ll even go back to real life?  Given that I was kind of burnt out on teaching (the whole premise of my transmigration) and that I feel like I need to be closer to my mom while I still have her, maybe I’ll stick around Minnesota for a while.  Or maybe democracy will fail tonight and I’ll be desperate to escape reality again.  I guess only time will tell.

*A genre where the main character transmigrates into a new, often fantasy, world

**Believe it or not, there was a time when I was the opposite of a homebody.

***Actually, the answer to that is "via mail," but I screwed up my Iowa absentee ballot request, and this is an election that anyone of conscience just can NOT miss.

Art Nomads: Zula Tuvshinbat

Alternate Title: This Exhibition Should Have Come With A Trigger Warning

Well, it had to happen eventually.  If this was my last year teaching - and it just might be - it makes sense that this is the year It would happen.   The thing that happens to every teacher, eventually, and you know as it unfolds exactly what it is:

The Worst Teaching Day of Your Career.*

For narrative purposes, it would be fun to say it started like any other, but to be completely honest, it did not.  I had decided it would be good for my Art III students, especially my AP students, if I took them out into the world to see some Real Art.  I took them to galleries in what my students informed me was UB's "Shibuya" - the intersection between the big library and KFC.  Only, silly me, after 9 years in Mongolia I had decided that it would be fine to take them to these exhibitions even though I hadn't previewed them because every other exhibition I'd seen in UB was tame.  I knew the third show, the one that involved tufting, had a little abstract nudity, because I'd seen an image from it on the gallery's website, but since one of my students had talked about focusing on the body in their work, I decided the risk outweighed the benefits.

I was wrong.  So very, very wrong.

We made it to the third gallery before it happened.  The first one we hit was pretty standard Mongolian subjects - horses, families, flowers - and style.  The second was landscapes and yaks.  A lot of yaks.  We had lunch at Fat Hen - the students' request, and always a tasty treat.  I was ready to head back to the school after briefly stopping into a new "contemporary" art gallery, Lkham.  Most of the artwork seemed okay at first glance.  Working with abstraction has that effect.  The technique - tufting - also helps...it's hard to feel threatened by a rug.  At least, until you realize that rug is a snake-penis growing out of a man's torso and about to strike a stylized vajayjay.

Well.  When we walked in, and I realized that some of the work was a bit more "confrontational" than I was expecting, I probably should have just called it a day.  But the thing about being an art teacher is that the human body is a pretty significant theme in art, and even more so contemporary art.  So I muttered that along with something to the extent of "don't like, don't look" and off we went. 

"2 CUTE 4 U," 2023

The art was beautiful, and really well crafted, and the kids seemed to enjoy seeing something different.  One of them brought up the Cesar A. Cruz quote often misattributed to Banksy: "Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable," and how this exhibition really helped them to understand its meaning.  But another mentioned - somewhat jokingly - that this probably wasn't an exhibition to take students to if they identified as ace or were gender non-conforming, and suddenly I had visions of my students posting their photos to social media, angry parent calls, and myself packing up my apartment and heading home jobless 8 months sooner than expected.  Probably because I'd been keeping closer track of US news than was good for me, but still.

"Loyal as a Dog," 2023

So I spent the long bus ride in traffic back to the school sweating.  I informed my principal about it, and talked to the students - let them know that if they were uncomfortable with the art that that was part of the artist's intent, but that they could and should talk to their parents, asked them to be mindful of where they posted the pictures, and hoped for the best.  My principal reminded me that we were in Mongolia, not the US, and that our parents weren't overly concerned with these sorts of things, and my friends who saw the work when my students excitedly showed them photos consoled me that it really wasn't that bad.  Still, I'm glad that I'll be making art instead of teaching it for the foreseeable future.

*Fun fact: my siblings and I were responsible for several of these in our day, so I guess karma's a bitch.

Into the Black City

 My last spring break as a teacher (at least for a good long while) is over.  On one hand, this means that I won't have to experience the way a week can stretch infinitely at the end of a quarter while you pray you survive long enough to be free of the children for at least a few short days of travel.  On the other hand, it means I'm going to be too broke to actually have a few short days of travel...unless I break my piggy bank.  This is something that I'm trying to avoid, but after a year Stateside I may be desperate enough.  I have hope that Minneapolis will be lively enough to keep me from noticing all the places I haven't gone.

Ever since the Evil One moved to Armenia I've been intending to go visit.  After all, we were practically neighbors...or so I told myself.*  I was aware, on some level, that it was trickier to get to the other end of central Asia than I was telling myself, since Her Evilness and co. came to visit two years ago, but you have to actually EXPERIENCE it to realize the truth.  I've said it before.  I'll say it again, especially since it may be the last time I do so for two years: getting there is NOT half the fun.  See, flights into Yerevan are sporadic.  What the Evil One did - and what she suggested to me - was to fly through Istanbul into Tblisi, which is in Georgia.  Four hours away from Yerevan.  Which either meant another flight - if there was one when I needed it (there wasn't) or ground transportation.  She suggested a taxi.  I said a bus was fine (I am not living on a state department salary, after all).  And then she booked and paid for a taxi anyways, and had it take me directly to Gyumri - the first place that I mentioned wanting to visit - and met me there, claiming that it made it easier for her (because it did - no worrying about me while also avoiding a 8-hour drive round trip).

I was struck pretty hard through the drive by how similar Georgia (and later Armenia) felt.  Topographically as well as the nature and some of the buildings gave me the impression that Mongolia and Greece got together and had a love child, then gave it to Russia to raise.  My driver rushed along nice, smooth roads til we got to the border crossing - I think my fifth time crossing by land.**  Since these days we mostly travel internationally by plane, it's easy to forget that you typically have to pass immigration twice - as a departure and as an arrival - but it was kind of a trip to be dropped off by the driver, walk through Georgian immigration just a few hours after they stamped my passport at the airport, drive over a river, get out and walk through Armenian immigration with my luggage, because this time I also had to go through customs.  Not my weirdest land crossing, but definitely interesting.

The taxi made a brief stop for food (ie, snacks) and the bathroom just past the border, and then we wound through a canyon pretty much all the way to Gyumri, another 3 hours.  The views were stunning and bleak by turns - I would have loved to make the driver stop at several points for photos, but since he was getting paid as a taxi driver, not a tour driver, I went easy on him.  

Finally I made it to the old town, where the Evil One had booked us into the Grand Apricot hotel.  She and her spawn came out and retrieved me from the driver and escorted me along a walking street before giving me the "grand tour" of my hotel room, which had been ransacked for pillows by the Lesser of Two Evils.  After a short break, we all went out wandering.

The Armenians are amazing stone workers, and if I'd had more time, I would have taken her Evilness up on the offer to find me a carving class to take.  Instead, I just had to admire it and take photos ad nauseum.  The stone many of the buildings and carvings are made from is called tuff, a kind of sedimentary stone made from volcanic ash.  Apparently the city planners of Gyumri - formerly known as Aleksandropol - had an emo streak, because they primarily used the black tuff for their masonry.  And since I have a bit of an emo streak myself, of course I loved it...now I just have to figure out how to work it into a piece (maybe embossed paper???)

My first morning in Armenia I woke up bright and early for the thing that had brought me to Gyumri - dolls.  Of course.  The Family Evil slept in while I walked past churches to buy a loaf of bread and sit in the fresh morning air eating a snack, then wandered the rest of the way over to Naro Dolls.

It was a little off the beaten track, but 100% worth it!  I loved meeting another craftsman - she hand sews and stuffs the dolls, using some cloth accessories as well as the painting.  She even had a "big sister" doll based on the same design that I chose, which I really loved.  Although it was different from the dolls I usually make, it was fun and I learned a new technique for the hair that I might have to try with my own dolls someday.  And her hospitality was so sweet - when I told her I didn't drink coffee or tea, instead she brought me a cup of water in one of Gyumri's special crafts - a metal cup that sings!  It was a pretty long workshop, and by the time Anahid (as Evil named her) was finished, it was about lunch time, so I got to try my first lavash, too, and it was delicious.

Finally I headed back to the hotel to force the sleepyheads to get moving.  It was Evil's birthday, after all, so even if a lie-in was called for, we definitely needed to go see something.  We discussed what we should do next, and after wandering a bit ended up at the Black Fortress.

Once upon a time, of course, it was an actual military fortification.  The hill it sits on gives a strong advantage, with views of the countryside (ie, the Turkish border) all around...not to mention a lot of steps, if you count that sort of thing.  But these days, it's used primarily for performances.  I checked out the acoustics, much to the mortification of the Lesser of Two Evils, who refused to sing songs from Frozen with me, even though we were about the only people there.  As we were about to leave, the caretaker came and offered to show us the museum, as well - apparently it kind of opens on an as-needed basis.  We also got a nice view of Gyumri's Mother Armenia statue.

And that was about it.  The next day, we visited the Museum of the Two Sisters - an art museum showcasing the work of two women from Gyumri - and stopped at HayAr jewelry on our way out of town, where I got to buy a beautiful pomegranate necklace made of recycled bullet casings.  Then we were on our way to Yerevan.

*Yes, we physically lived closer to one another her first go-round - her in India, me in the Emirates - but Mongolia and Armenia feel closer on a mental level.  Yes, my brain is a crazy, crazy place.

**I've also crossed US-Canada in 1989, South-North Korea in 2007, Greece-Turkey in 2008, and China-Nepal in 2013

Woman of Culture

Once upon a time I went to the Louvre, and in the Louvre, there are all these paintings by Rubens commissioned by Catherine de Medici.  Apparently (I say, because apparently I did not post a blog of my thoughts from the Louvre) these were intended to be a kind of visual biography, but I remember thinking at the time that if I was a hot blooded Italian woman who was also queen, I would have been appalled at the lack of good looking nekkid dudes.  Not a single eggplant in the whole cornucopia, if you catch my drift, and that just seemed wrong.  I would have called Peter-Paul into the palace and said, “Lovely work as usual, Ruby, but could you add a few naked men?  Why are they naked?  Has anyone ever asked why the women in paintings are nude…there are literally tits out all over the place, JUST GO AND PAINT THEM!” 

Well, now I have a theory about that.  Apparently, the problem was that she just wasn’t a fujoshi.  At some point during the pandemic, I read an article about a temple near Niigata, Kugamiyama Kokujou-ji.  Now, if you’ve read any of my Japan posts at all you may find yourself thinking, “Oh.  Goody.  Another temple she just HAD to visit.  #sarcasm.”  My retort would be that in this quirky country called Japan there’s ALWAYS something new to discover, even when it comes to something as seemingly redundant as Buddhist temples.

So here’s the story.  Kugamiyama Kokujou-Ji came up with the brilliant plan that they could get more visitors by adding some art to the temple.  Enter my new favorite nihonga artist, KIMURA Ryoko.  The panels cover the external walls of the main temple, and feature - among others - the original Minamoto-kun (aka Minamoto no Yoshitsune) and a demon (oni) named Shuten-Doji.

There is, however, one slight, tiiiiny little difference between Kimura Sensei’s work and how these figures are normally portrayed.  Namely, a LOT less clothing.  Okay, so just in case you’re new around here, there’s a subculture of women (originally Asian ones, but it has become a global phenomenon) that enjoy stories and artwork depicting relationships between men.  Of course, there is a whole range of what kind of relationships those are, with a whole lot of ambiguity, particularly at the more innocent end of the spectrum.  There’s probably a lot to be analyzed here about the patriarchy, the female gaze, etc, but my master’s degree is a distant memory, with two years’ worth of dust on the ol’APA-style handbook, so - if this is news to you - suffice it to say that two beautiful men are ALWAYS better than one.

Ok, and if you’re into history and lore, you might realize - for example - that it was an older member of the famous military clan (Minamoto-senpai, if you will), Minamoto no Yorimitsu, who dealt with Shuten-doji.  But if you’re like me, that’s not what y’all are here for.

I mean, if it was, I guess Minamoto Raiko with Shuten-Doji would make a helluva enemies-to-lovers trope, but I digress.

Anywho.  All of the figures in the the murals have some kind of connection to the temple (according to Sora News, anyways - I’m having a hard enough time typing this on my broken keyboard as the Shinkansen darts in and out of mountains to be very thorough in my research).  Apparently Kimura’s vision was to depict all of them living in harmony, even though they were from different times and different backgrounds.  Kinda cheesy, I know, but it’s a good excuse to paint dudes chilling in a hot tub, and nobody hates an onsen episode.  I mean, not unless you also hate fun.

The link that originally introduced me to this cultural wonder also reported that the murals were slated to be removed about a year ago.  Apparently not everyone appreciates the nude male form, or thinks it’s appropriate decor for a temple.  Japan was still closed to tourism back then, and there may have been some gnashing of teeth when I thought that I’d miss it…at least until I discovered Kimura’s Instagram, which features even more work with similar style and content.  Still, there’s something to be said for viewing art in specific contexts, so when I realized I was going to be chilling my heels in Toyama once again, I looked up Kokujou-Ji and was delighted to see that recent photos on Google Maps included the paintings.

One of the things about seeing these in person was I could tell that they were not painted with nihonga’s hand-mixed pigment paints.  This makes sense, as binder for the pigments is water-soluble, and thus susceptible to the weather.  Unless I’m mistaken, Kimura used acrylic, which is much more durable.  If you’re familiar with the anime Hoozuki no Reitetsu, there’s an episode in which Hoozuki gets one of his lackeys to repaint a mural in hell which has weathered over the years.  At the end, it’s revealed that the original painting was by Hokusai.  That is the last thing we’d want happening to these masterpieces, so even though I was a little disappointed that I didn’t get to see the way the pigments sparkled in the sunlight, I have to admit that this is for the best.

All that said, Kokujou-Ji is a pain in the ass to get to.  Google Maps clocked it at no less than 3 hours in either direction.  By the time I got to Yoshida station, I decided that time is money, and hailed a cab to take me up the mountain (the bus that would get me “close” would have taken an hour, and I would have had to hike 40 minutes after that!). When I went to Zao to see the foxes and I was frustrated by the lack of a bus, I told myself that someday I’d be back in Japan and I wouldn’t have to worry about taking a taxi all by myself, no matter how much it cost.

Well, that day finally came…and we’re not going to talk about how much that round trip taxi cost, because it now holds the record for my most expensive taxi ride in Japan.  Possibly of all time, but I’m still on vacation for 48 more hours, so I can’t account for inflation and conversion rates.  Besides which, I honestly don’t care.  It was 100% worth it to me to get to see the paintings, and you can factor in the lack of sweat from climbing a mountain as inflation, and the helpful tip that I return via a different station in order to catch the Shinkansen as the conversion rate.  

Ups and Downs

It was a dark, and stormy, Monday afternoon...

After two LONG years, this spring break saw me finally, FINALLY on the road again.  It would have been nice if I could have gone to Japan - had that trip I planned two and a half years ago, sitting on a beach in Toyama watching the firefly squid roll in - but that hope was in vain.  Instead, I finally caved and went with the suggestion Engrish tentatively made, back in January or so: we could always do Turkey.

Now, if you have been patiently waiting the last 11 months (haha) for me to write words*, you will no doubt be aware that I've done Turkey before.  Seven years ago, I led an intrepid band of my rag-tag students there.  Seven years before that, I led an intrepid band of my ragtag self there.  Maybe in another seven years I'll go back, and finally see Pamukkale (I've been kicking myself for not going there since 2008.  True story).  I had a blast both times, but I did basically the same thing both times...just with kids the second go-round.  This time, though, Engrish was my wing-girl, so futzing around in the city for a week would NOT do.

I believe it was she who first suggested Cappadocia...I'm pretty sure she described it as, "That place with the interesting rock formations."  Fortunately, I speak engrish, and I know enough about Turkey to guess, with pinpoint accuracy, what the hell she was talking about.  We booked our flights - I got us overnight bus tickets to Goreme, she found hotels - and two weeks back, we found ourselves under warm skies, looking at green grass, and breathing mask free.**

After an early check-in the clerk called "lucky" (because our room was, in fact, actually ready at 7:30 am), we walked down the street to what is apparently Goreme's only coffee shop that opens before 9 - King's Coffee.  The owner didn't seem too appalled that I ordered a coke to go with my "toast" (grilled cheese)...maybe that was because Engrish ordered a Turkish coffee like a decent human being.  On the other hand, considering the number of times Engrish was offered Nescafe, as though that was remotely related to actual coffee, maybe he's just been around enough tourists over the years to become jaded.  Who knows?

At any rate, my first order of business was to get to Urgup and enjoy an art lesson - ebru, Turkish marbling.  (Good to know that the pandemic didn't change everything, eh?)  I left Engrish to her own devices (which I had no doubt would involve hiking up the biggest cliff she could access) and caught a taxi to Kappadokya Ebru Sanat Evi (or Ebru Art House).  

I had a brief run-in with marbling when I brought the kids seven years ago, but I didn't get the chance to really indulge in it.  This time I wanted to be able to understand it, so that I'd be able to do it again once I was home.  The owner, Guler Somturk, and her daughter were really patient about answering all of my questions as well as guiding me to learn the basic forms.  We were having so much fun that I didn't even realize when my two hours were up.  The only shame is that I had to go so early that Engrish missed out on sampling at the winery across the street.

I returned to the hotel to find her sitting in the sun reading (for approximately the last time...unlike some people she didn't work her way through 200 chapters of a webnovel during the week).  After taking a shower we went out looking for something tasty.  After I'd abandoned her that morning, some weird old broad in the cafe had suggested a restaurant for us to try...however, after we took a look at their menu we decided trusting weird old broads that randomly start conversations with you in cafes was a bad idea.  We wandered around Goreme's main drag, finally getting reeled in by a big place called Kebapzade.  Where we might have gone a little overboard.  I mean, this was our first REAL meal in Turkey.  After getting to the bus stop the night before we had iskander kebap at a nearby mall, but that was all they had on the menu.  Here, we took one look at the menu and ended up ordering what felt like one of everything.  And maybe I was just starving by that point, but I still think their pottery kebab was my favorite of the whole trip, because it was so juicy and flavorful.  More on those later, though.

At that point, I could no longer put off the inevitable.  Although at that point I was ready to be rolled back up the hill to the hotel, I had promised Engrish hiking.  It could have been worse - as mentioned in the first line of this post, it was stormy, which seemed to concern some of the passersby, but Engrish was not to be deterred and I actually like the rain.  Worse come to worst, I would get soaked and have an excuse to spend the evening reading snuggled up in our cave.  My plan was to delay us tackling anything too strenuous by going to the Goreme Open Air Museum.  Along the way, though, we got distracted by something shiny - the famous "fairy chimneys" (aka, interesting rock formations).  

We actually intended to end up at the museum, really.  It's just...the trail that should have taken us there didn't.  Possibly because we willfully wandered off it in a different direction.  And by we, I totally take the blame for that, because my internal GPS kept telling me we were moving back in the direction of the town, rather than away from it.  But the scenery was pretty nice and the trail wasn't terribly steep, so all was good.

Or, rather, it was...and then it wasn't.  In a very short amount of time we found ourselves getting higher and higher on the ridge that my internal GPS kept telling me separated us from the town, and I let us keep going, because I knew that this would actually turn into a shortcut.  And it did.  However, I made Engrish go up the last, steepest bit to make sure before I climbed it.  The moral of the story is, if you don't want to pay to access Goreme's sunset point, there's a back way in, but be prepared to work for it!  

*Joke's on you - I've written lots of words.  I just haven't published any of them because they were fucking depressing.  Nobody really wants to read about my nerd cave, or my (futile) attempts to kick my ass into a slightly less round shape.

**Mostly...I was a lot more hesitant to burn mine than Engrish was, but even I didn't wear mine that much.

Art Nomad: S. Shurentsetseg and G. Gerelkhuu

It's been three weeks since I got back from Japan.  I mentioned last time that I made at least a passing attempt at resisting its pull, and it's possible that I should have tried harder, shouldn't have given in.  It's not that I didn't enjoy every second; in fact, it's exactly that.  Going back showed me what I was missing, and it's been a hard adjustment going back into the daily grind.  After all, back in August I was overwhelmed with the homecoming vibe, but now we're over it. 

And that's leaving aside the fact that I had just gotten used to saying Mongolian things, and now I'm stuck on "sumimasen" again.  Had gotten used to putting toilet paper in the bin and now I keep forgetting and flushing it.  I'd kind of accepted Mongolia's lawless laissez-faire and now I want people to follow the damn rules.  I never had Mongolian Days when I lived here before, but then, China was my last watermark.  After a refresher course in Japanese etiquette, my temper is short, and I don't really like acting like a pain-in-the-ass foreigner.  That said, I'm sure I'll get over it, if I give myself time.

Mongol Queens series, by S. Shurentsetseg

The art I'm writing about today has actually been off the walls for a long, long time; I just couldn't get around to finishing this post.  The day I went I was trying to make it to Naran Tuul to find some supplies before going to Blondie's for dinner, and my brain wasn't as into art analysis as it probably should have been when I made my first stop, at Altan Khaan gallery.  Their current show was S. Shurentsetseg's "In Search of Origin," a body of work focusing on the female perspective on Mongolian cultural and social life.  Like a lot of Mongolian artists Shuren uses the image of Mongolian women in traditional clothing and hairstyles, but rather than the icy perfection that you often see portrayed her figures seem to have more going on beneath the surface.  Troubled expressions mar their faces, inviting the viewer to contemplate the causes of their discontent.  As I stared at her "Mongol Queens" series, the gallery owner came over and suggested to me that these women may have been queens, but it was not entirely by choice, and often involved leaving behind their own families and cultures.

Mother and Daughter, by S. Shurentsetseg

Her compositions are, by and large, relatively simple; the figures are positioned in the middle of the canvas against a simple or abstract background.  Shuren's color palette brings a certain amount of life to these figures, but also helps to set the tone of each piece.  Some are much more somber, while others have an undeniable warmth.

Daughter-in-Law Coming From Afar, by S. Shurentsetseg

What struck me more than anything else about her paintings was her use of pattern.  Lines freely twine over clothing and background, helping to establish a sense of visual cohesiveness regardless of Shuren's color scheme or use of space.  This also reinforces the "Mongolian-ness" of the women, referencing the patterns often found on the silk used for deel (the Mongolian national dress).  Overall I think she made a good start of subverting the idealized female in Mongolian art, and I'd be interested to see the direction Shuren goes in from here.

Eternal Tale III (left) and I (right), G. Gerelkhuu

That said, "In Search of the Origin" isn't the art I've been hoping to find since that trip back in March, 2018, but it was just down the street.  The 976 Gallery was my second stop, where the current exhibition was "The Demon's Egg," by G. Gerelkhuu.  THIS was exactly what I'd been looking for in Mongolian art ever since beginning my master's with that painting course.  Here was mixed media, pattern, life, motion, cultural references that are both accessible and yet, somehow not overplayed.  At first glance, they appear to be monumental abstractions.  Each piece is several feet long, stretching up toward the ceiling.  As you look closer, you realize that these are not abstract pieces, not canvases, but rather works on paper, using collage, printmaking, and other processes to recreate chaotic scenes of Mongolia.

Eternal Tale I, detail, G. Gerelkhuu

These reminded me, to a great extent, of the Mongol zurag paintings of Naadam and other daily scenes, but there was a sense of historic importance given to these pieces.  Hordes of mounted warriors in traditional armor swarm across the paper, attacking everything from faceless foes to colossal dragons, gunmen to monks.  In some cases the cavalry swirls their way through the composition, but more often it's absolute chaos, a battle royale between anyone unwise enough to stand against the Mongols.

Over There, detail, G. Gerelkhuu

Gerelkhuu's work feels almost monochromatic in nature, so that when he uses more color it really draws in your eye.  But possibly what I loved most about these works is the way he uses printmaking to create repetition.  Although I'm a long way from my bachelor's degree, back then the media I loved most was printmaking - intaglio, woodcut, anything really.  While I haven't done as much of it personally since then, that passion haunts me, and my biggest teaching regret is that somehow I've never managed to pass it on to any of my students - the way each printing matrix holds infinite possibilities, and can make as many pieces as you want.  Gerelkhuu's art struck a chord in me, made me feel challenged to try it myself, see if I can develop an image I can work into my studies of Japanese art and experiment with making something that would fill the height of a wall.   It hasn't happened yet, because, you know, grad school.  Taking two courses is even harder than I thought it would be, especially when they both involve a lot of reading, but I've only got about a month yet, so I suppose I'll manage somehow.  Most likely with a lot of coke.

Beyond the Bucket List

I assume you've heard the term bucket list before.  It's a phrase that implies there are things you HAVE to see, generally before you kick the bucket, but people also use it for singular trips.  The bucket list of things you have to do when you visit Japan, for example.  The thing is, I don't actually like this term.  Maybe I'm too old for it - in a way similar to the fact that I'm too old to really understand bullet journals (they happened after my time, yo) - but I think the bigger problem is that they deny the reality that there are layers and layers of possibilities in every trip.

I'd been resisting the pull of Japan since leaving, telling myself that I needed to buckle down and save up before I went back, because when I went back I was going to DO ALL THE THINGS!  I'd like to say that this was very practical of me, and applaud myself for not giving in to temptation...but I'm not really a very practical person.  As you know by now if you read my last post, my resolve broke about a month ago, and I started thinking about what else I could do in my favorite city in Japan.

See, my first go-round was all about geisha, shrines, and castles.  My focus shifted before I came back three years ago, when I went to about a bajillion festivals and art workshops.  Last fall I planned my trip around art exhibits and yokai hunting.  But the thing is there is ALWAYS something else to do there.  For example, the Ningyo Kuyo at Hokyo-Ji.  I've been wanting to come to this ceremony since I first learned that doll memorials were a thing in Japan, and this time the dates finally lined up.  I went to the Ningyou Kanshasai at Meiji Jingu, but this was completely different - more intimate and ceremonial.  Hokyo-Ji is a Buddhist nunnery temple where the head priestess was traditionally an imperial princess.  Normally they hold the ceremony outside, but since it was kind of rainy, we were gathered on the porch of the garden.  I ended up with front row "seats" - before it started they ushered all the foreigners to sit on tatami mats on the left side of the ceremony - and although it was a struggle to stay awake after about five minutes of chanting while different VIPs made their presentations, I was rewarded in the end with a musical performance (how much do I miss taiko?  SO much) and maiko dances.  Sadly I still haven't gotten to see the funeral pyre, but I guess that's just another reason to go back - I hear Tokorozawa holds one in June...

Another temple I neglected on past trips was Kosan-Ji.  This is where the Choujuu-Giga - a series of scrolls depicting animals doing wild and crazy things - were created.  They're often considered the earliest manga, and although I'd wanted to see where they came from the last time I was in Kyoto, there's never enough time to do everything.

From a subway station near my hotel I could take one bus all the way to the temple parking lot, so it seemed like the time was right to finally make it.  Actually finding the bus was the hardest part - it was one of those pesky JR buses that doesn't have a number, and as much as I love Google maps, they still haven't figured out bus stops.  The temple was beautiful, and walking across its wooden floors in my sock feet as I soaked up the sun was relaxing.  But its best feature was probably how it demonstrates one of the things I love the most about this place.  Kyoto is definitely a city, but all along its fringes are these beautiful bits of nature - mountains, forests, a lake.  I've said it so many times that it hardly bears repeating:  I'm a city girl through and through.  But I grew up in the country, and I've lived in Mongolia so many years that I also enjoy leaving civilization behind every once in a while.  Kyoto gives you both.

I steered clear of art museums this time but found more than enough art along my way.  I stumbled across yet another Zen Buddhist temple as I was cycling around Gion on my fifth day, Kennin-Ji.  I decided to go in on a whim - I needed to park my bike somewhere, since I was thinking about getting some ties cut that morning and Yasui Konpiragu doesn't have bike parking - but it turned out to be a serendipitous whim.  I was struck immediately by the beauty of the gardens, most likely because I've been building one in which to display my sacred relics.  If anything, I guess that was the driving force behind a lot of the sightseeing I did during this trip - later the same day I went to Eikan-Do specifically to see their gardens.

But Kennin-Ji also had some great art.  They had screens of Fuujin and Raijin - gods of wind and lightning - possibly the originals, since they seemed to be selling an awful lot of swag featuring them.  But they also had an incredibly beautiful contemporary sumi-e painting of twin dragons in the main prayer hall, done to commemorate the 800th anniversary of their founding.  When I left the temple, I felt like I'd done my professional development for the week, and felt just that much less guilty about wasting time on shopping.

I did not, though, end up going to Yasui Konpiragu afterwards.  See, in addition to a shit ton of shopping and hanging out with my padawan, I was looking forward to some quality time with Sensei, who turned out to be on vacation the same week as me, and announced that she'd be coming through Kyoto on her way back from Shikoku after I booked my ticket.  I realized that she was the perfect person to go with to get my ties cut.  See, Yasui Konpiragu's kamisama is famous for cutting ties with prejudice, and after getting yet another email from our favorite cyberstalker, I figured I could use a good tie-cutting.  Afterwards we wandered up to Yasaka Jinja, and then back toward Sanjo where her hotel was, stopping at Red Rock for lunch.  I hadn't realized til I saw her how much I missed her.

After a full day of shopping in Osaka on Saturday, trying to scurry back to the hotel through the rain while protecting my treasures, I kind of just wanted to eat yakiniku and stay in for the rest of the night.  But there was one, last thing I had to do; after flopping on the bed for about a half hour, I realized I'd be pissed at myself if I missed it, so I blow-dried my clothes, trudged down to the bus stop, and embarked on my way to Taishogun Street.  I went there last fall to hunt yokai, but I missed the main event - the Hyakki Yagyu, or Night Parade of 100 Demons.  Given my own particular idiom, this was totally unacceptable, and since it was happening while I was there this time, I really had to make it.  The Japanese do cosplay like nobody else in the world, with the end result being that you really felt like you were mingling with myths on the street.  Eventually musicians joined us and began to play - oh my taiko! - and the ayakashi danced off into the night.

I continued down the street past the stalls of the Mononoke Ichi - a market selling yokai goods - just narrowly resisting the temptation to buy a paper kitsune lantern (it was 3,000 yen and I was already bringing back both kitsune AND a lantern, or else I might have succumbed).  Further on Daishogun Hachiman Jinja was lit up with lanterns and stalls selling food, and I couldn't resist the lure of one more kakigori before I left.  Everyone should be so lucky as to both start and end a week in Kyoto with a matsuri.

Art Nomad: B. Tserendash and D. Ganbold

The blogging for this year could be off to a better start.  Ignore for the moment the fact that I'm a few days late and several dollars short (arigato very much, Japan).  I like to joke around about the fact that I have six readers, but for the moment, it's actually true.  If you are currently reading this, you are one of a very short list of people privileged to my writing.  To explain why, I've gotta take the Wayback Machine to last January.  A friend of mine asked me to meet her for dinner because she needed to talk about her then-husband's escalating temper.  Between myself and her other friends, we got her out of the situation before any lasting harm was inflicted, but unfortunately, that wasn't the end of the tale.  Her ex-person (as he turned out to not be legally married to her under either Japan or US laws) managed to get ahold of email addresses of some of her friends and has ever since been spamming us with emails that range from pathetic ("This is killing me") to manipulative ("I'm going to kill myself") to just plain creepy ("I pray to God that something happens to you like this one day," which I'd gleefully inform him isn't how God works - and even if He did, I'm pretty sure I'm on better terms with Him - except that would require a response, and I've been avoiding that).  And then last week my friend let me know her ex-asshole looked up her new Facebook account, because my friends list is public, and the fact that I've never had anything to worry about as far as internet security goes was a thing of the past.  There's not much solid info in here, thanks to the fact that I adopted The Evil One's practice of using code names shortly after I started this blog, but I suppose if someone wanted to be a creeper badly enough, they could figure out a lot, especially if they knew my actual name.  So here we are.  Eventually I imagine it will be okay to make my blog public again, but for now, I'm erring on the side of caution.

But that doesn't let me off the hook as far as the blog goes.  I promised that I was going to blog y'all some Mongolian art, and that was just as well, since I sort of got stood up by an old student on Saturday morning.  To be fair, I was dubious when he suggested meeting at 9:30 am, and it turns out for good reason, but I had a book and - as he pointed out - I had a good breakfast, finally learning exactly what eggs benedict are at ROC in Zaisan.  I went to Merkuri from there to continue restocking my kitchen, since I had inexplicably rediscovered the desire to bake again after two years without an oven.  After a well-earned foot massage I was finally ready to see some art.

The first artist I actually saw the previous week after visiting the Union of Mongolian Artists show.  The Sengeragi Gallery (formerly Best Art) is in the same building, and although Art Avenue said that Batmunkh Tserendash's Nomad Art exhibition was only August 4-7, there it was, so I checked it out.

Sculpture is really not my thing, but I keep telling myself that I need to get over that.  That's cause I'm an art teacher, yo.  Of course, I'd never thought about it the other way around...that being an art teacher could help me get over my blocks about sculpture not really being my thing  Looking at Tserendash's sculptures didn't make me a better sculptor myself, but I felt like I had a better appreciation for them because I teach about sculpture.

For example, the first thing that stood out to me about Tserendash's work was the materials that he used.  Although I can't give you particulars about what kinds, he works primarily in wood, with metal embellishments.  There is striking contrast between the warmth of wood and the organic qualities of its grain against the metal, but it's interesting to see the ways in which Tserendash manipulates these qualities to make them more compatible; staining the wood a cool color, or shaping the metal into more organic forms.  Some parts of the work appear at first glance to be metallic, but on closer inspection turn out to be distressed wood.   This purposeful manipulation of materials begs the question of what the the thought process behind the choice was.  To make the sculptures lighter?  To make a statement about the impermanence of nomadic life?  I'm pretty sure I'm not versed enough in Mongolian art at this point to venture a guess.

The other thing I most enjoyed about Tserendash's work was the play of the shadows on the gallery walls.  One quality of sculpture is that it does have that third dimension.  You can view it from different angles, but this also means that when light strikes it (particularly the bright, directed light favored in galleries) there will be an interaction with the space.  The sculptures were interesting but seeing the shadows they cast suggested to me that the work was the contemporary successor of Mongolian artistic traditions.  But then maybe I'm stretching.

Queens, by D. Ganbold

I dropped in on the Altan Khaan Gallery after the Sengeragi Gallery, but didn't look critically until a week later.  Dorjderem Ganbold's exhibition, "Once Upon a Time in Mongolia," highlights the usual Mongolian themes, but expresses them using a fauve color palette and abstract treatment.  He is the grandson of a Mongol zurag painter named Ch. Minjuur, and it wasn't until I was getting ready to write this post that I figured out that Mongol zurag is essentially the Mongolian equivalent of nihonga.  If you've ever seen a rendition of a Naadam scene, or a thangka painting, these are typically painted with mineral pigments, although the pigments used seem to be different from the ones I used over the last year and a half (unless they aren't, in which case it's probably down to the fact that I favored the large grain sizes that get that beautiful sparkle in sunlight).

Autumn Melody, by D. Ganbold

With these pieces Ganbold aims to give an eternal sense of grandeur to nomadic life.  The scale of these works works well towards achieving this; although he had some smaller pieces, such as "Childhood," for the most part his paintings are at a relatively large scale.  What makes these especially effective is the contrast between cool backgrounds and warm, vivid colors in the foreground.  Even from outside the gallery the glowing effect of his color choices catches the eye and draws you in.

Splendid Altai Mountains, by D. Ganbold

I do have to say that I found the surface texture to be somewhat distracting.  The paint was neither as thickly textured as some of the visual texture might lead you to believe nor super smooth.  Either one of these would have been fine, but instead there were areas where the paint rose away from the canvas that - at least to me - detracted from the overall quality of the work.  But maybe that's just me.  If his goal is to preserve what he (in his artist statement) calls "true intangible assets of Mongolia," I would say that this is a successful body of work.

However...I'm sure this will come up again as I try to write about Mongolian art, but Mongolian art largely seems to incorporate the same themes over and over again ad nauseum.  Herders and herds and horses and the fucking badass Mongolian queens, Chinggis, the steppe, the mountains, deerstones, long script: I'm probably forgetting one or two, but you get the gist.  Don't get me wrong - these are important traditions to Mongolia, but I feel like contemporary art here is so obsessed with its past that it's blind to the issues of its present and future.  And the more I've studied art, the more I value work that can shock and challenge and make a statement.  So here's hoping for more of that in posts to come.