Tei • Genkitchi • Humiko • Sakui • Ritsu • Reiko • Seiji • Self Portrait • Kichitaro • Kazhua • Hirome • Seki • Harui • Kamiya Reiko • Yoshiko
Tei
Oil on canvas 42×54 inches
July 2006
“Experiencing starvation in my early life, now I am most contented with my life. My wish is that Hachi will remain peaceful for my grandchildren.”
-Tei Omi
Genkitchi
Oil on canvas 42×54 inches
July 2006
“I am happy that I look younger in the picture than I am. My job is dying Kimonos in color gradations. It is the first step in the creation process.”`
-`Genkitchi Omo
Humiko
Oil on canvas 42×54 inches
July 2006
“I miss the sounds and music of the children. After my children left the house, I began to sing.”
-Humiko Omi
Sakui
Oil on canvas 42×54 inches
June 2006
“Since my father worked as a carpenter and a farmer, I did not have to go to the woods, and I am still in good health. That’s why I can continue weaving. The factory says they will give me work as long as I can do it, and I feel happy about it.”
-Sakui Omi
Ritsu
Oil on canvas 42×54 inches
July 2006
“Eggs became cheap, and people stopped raising chickens. Now, I am the only one who raises chickens here. I can use vegetable scraps to feed them, and caring for them helps prevent me from becoming senile. My chickens are getting older these days and cannot lay many eggs. But I love them and will care for them until their last day.”
-Ritsu Omi
Reiko
Oil on canvas 42×54 inches
June 2006
“There were always elder people around us. For school activities like a sports day event, students and everyone in the community participated. Hachi was one big family. I took it as a matter of course, but I learned for the first time that it was not true when I went to Junior high school outside of Hachi. Therefore, I have returned to Hachi after finishing vocational college.”
-Reiko Omi
Seiji
Oil on canvas 42×54 inches
July 2006
“Looking at this portrait, I have found myself again.”
-Seiji Omi
Oil on canvas 42×54 inches
“After completing the 17 portraits, I returned to my self-portrait, which I had started when I arrived. I felt that a part of me had changed through entering into people’s lives and being welcomed there.”
-Vivian Reiss
Kichitaro
Oil on canvas 42×54 inches
July 2006
“I was drafted twice, the first time was for the Sino-Japanese war and then when I was 21 years old… War is such a waste.”
-Kichitaro Omi
Kazhua
Oil on canvas 42×56 inches
May 2006
“This was the first portrait I completed in Satoyama Storehouse.”
-Vivian Reiss
When I first arrived in Hachi, everybody was busy planting rice as the snows were delayed that year. So, I had to search elsewhere for models. At James Turrell’s “House of Light,” I found Kazuha. She was the caretaker and guide. We were lucky enough to spend the night at the ‘House of Light’ enjoying Turrell’s installation at all times of the day and evening.
I noticed that Kazuha grew mushrooms in the shade behind the ticket booth.
I was fascinated by the idea that here was Kazuha, guiding us through the House of Light, growing mushrooms in the dark. This became the theme of the painting.
During the portrait, Kazuha told me that her name in Kanji (Chinese characters) means ‘falling leaves'”
-Vivian Reiss
Hirome
Oil on canvas 42×54 inches
June 2006
“Hachi has a lot of snow and is located in the mountains. But fresh air, the song of birds and the feeling of wind make us live happily.”
-Hirome Omi
Seki
Oil on canvas 42×54 inches
July 2006
“My mother was ill and did not eat much. But I do not know whether it came from her illness or her hope to give her children more food.
I thought I would eat and move a lot to be a healthy mother. Because one who is well can be kind to everyone.”
-Seki Omi
Seki was the mother of 4 daughters. And she was extremely spunky and intelligent. I loved when she posed for me because as the triennial exhibition grew near, there was a lot of anxiety in the air. But Seki exuded such calmness that we all felt nurtured by her serenity when she walked into the room. Seki shared a common history with other women her age; at twelve, in hard times, the girls were sent alone to work in factories in various cities in Japan. Others told me how they cried into their pillows as they left the village. Seki welcomed the adventure. During the pose, I found out how spunky she was. As soon as her children were grown, she announced,” I want to work outside the home. She looked at ads in the newspaper and went on job interviews; I think she was the first woman in her age group to do such a thing. At first, she worked in a soba factory, but that work was too demanding. Then she answered an ad for a kindergarten cook. To this day, she cooks for her 4 four daughters and their small children, as well as the nursery.
When I first visited her home to ask if she would pose for me, she wore a blouse with butterflies, which became her portrait’s fundamental compositional element. She is portrayed in her kitchen with her reused jars full of preserves.
She is Kitchitaros niece, and when she saw his portrait, she was reminded of her father. She is also Koto’s sister.-Vivian Reiss
Harui
Oil on canvas 42×54 inches
June 2006
“I have been to hell. There, I saw blue ogres and red ones. One of them hit me on the head.
I was unconscious in a bed in a hospital, but when I came out of it, the doctor said to me that whether I would live or not depended on my will to live.
Since I love the mountains, I will not be defeated by illness. I want to live.”
-Harui Omi
Seki and Harui were girlhood friends. They went to school together, and by the time we met them, as women in their seventies, they would bond by hiking up into the mountains behind Hachi and finding wild things to eat- vegetables, mushrooms, bamboo shoots- and then return home and preserve them- drying, pickling, salting and otherwise endlessly cooking…
I first noticed Harui on a walk up to the shrine. Her front yard overlooked the valley, and she would smile and enthusiastically wave to us. I’d say hello to Konnichiwa every day and went with my translator, Junko, to her house to ask her to pose for me. She took us into her house, and there was a table set with all kinds of rice, pickles, and vegetables, and partaking in the food was not optional. Her late husband, she explained, was disabled, and they had no children, but anyone who came to visit was considered like a special fairy and a gift. It took no persuading for her to agree to pose.
These two portraits were placed in the home economics room of the school house. The room wasn’t originally assigned to me for my show, but when I finished these two portraits, it was clear that that was the place where I wanted to show the portraits of Harui and Seki. Installing Satoyama Storehouse in the schoolhouse had many challenges- The vast number of windows, the blackboard, shelves, and bookcases really left very little hanging space. As one of the few painters in the Triennial, I felt it was essential to be understood as paintings, not installation art. The first step was designing easels and making them with limited resources. Some walls were covered with white curtains, and others had a neutral navy carpet underlay. That is how I installed the portraits in the ex-music and arts and crafts rooms.
I felt the kitchen could exist pretty well as it was. There were existing clotheslines in the kitchen where I hung my gouaches of Hachi’s changing flora. The only alteration that I made was covering the green blackboards with white Lucite.
The hanging was successful; I had put Seki and Harui in an environment where they could come into their own as paintings and in their relationship.
-Vivian Reiss
Kamiya Reiko
Oil on canvas 42×54 inches
July 2006
“I thought you just painted a picture. I didn’t realize you wanted to know the person. Standing here and talking, I remember the times when things were not so good in my life. I realized how happy I am now. Thank you.”
-Reiko Kamiya
I had planned a trip to Japan for the summer of 2003. For a long time, I’d kept a magazine article, filed away if I ever went to Japan, with a photo of a giant gourd at the end of a dock. It was an illustration of a museum where you could sleep. That would be a dream come true, like children dreaming at night that their toys came alive. But as the trip approached, I couldn’t find the article anywhere (I now know the museum was Benesse House). In asking around, a friend pointed me to an art festival that she thought maybe it was. As it turns out, that was the Echigo Tsumari Triennial of 2003.
I arrived in Japan after a long trip and went to Hakone. It was a holiday weekend, and the town was not the most hospitable. Rooms were hard to find, money was impossible to change. I called the art festival office on a whim to see how to get there. As it turns out, the voice on the other end spoke English, had gone to university in Montreal and got us a place to stay and tickets for a bus tour of the triennial (that was Makiko Hara). After a lengthy train ride, I arrived in Tokamachi to see a young woman waiting for me, with a baby on her back and one in either hand. The children were full of life and mischief and climbed all over the van and us as we drove to the [Minshuku/]. We had a fabulous time at the Triennial; it was the most fantastic art show we had ever seen. We had many adventures with the family we were staying with, going to different Matsuri every night, dancing folk, seeing fireworks, and introducing the children to art.
On the last evening, Reiko, the grandmother of the house, donned a white costume, put on a tape, and performed a traditional sword dance for us.
When I came home to Toronto, I repeatedly told my husband and children the tale about how the sword-dancing grandmother had performed for me and what a great time I’d had with this rural Japanese family.
Several years passed. Something that I thought was very much in the future and geographically very far away- the next Echigo Tsumari triennial- was very close by. A letter inviting me to participate and create my Satoyama Storehouse was in my mailbox.
In May 2006, as soon as the snow had melted in a tiny Hachi village, I was on my way there with 20 canvases, paints and my family.
The Triennial is large, over 200 square kilometres and encompasses 3 major towns and many little villages. I could have been assigned anywhere.
In Hachi, there were no stores, so daily, we would descend from the idyllic rural village to the next central town where we would shop for food and clothing in a big box store called Jusco, and buy our home garden and building supplies from the Home Depot-like chain store next to it, Musashi.
On my first day, driving down the mountain to go to the supermarket, all of a sudden, I realized I was going by the inn I had stayed at during my first visit.
I pointed it out to my husband, and he kept saying, “Why don’t you paint the sword dancer? She would be great! I heard so much about the sword dancer”. And I would reply, “The triennial will only let me paint the people from Hachi, and I’m so busy.” I was rather shy and didn’t have a translator whenever I went by, so somehow, I never said hello.
The daughter was outside one day, driving down the hill. I stopped. She looked at me, and one second later, in a flash of recognition, her mouth fell open. I said, ‘I’m back, and this time I’m an artist in the Triennial’.
She ran to get her mother, Reiko, who also came running. So we, across languages, started talking, and I told her about my project and how I’d love to paint her, but I couldn’t because the Triennial would only let me paint people from Hachi.
“But I’m from Hachi!” she replied. “I was born there, and my parents ran the big weaving school you see on the hill.”
I asked her to sit for me, but she said she could not for a long time because her second daughter was visiting from the US, and she had to spend time with her.
So I suggested that her daughter be the translator, and they go through the process together.
The day to paint Reiko arrived. She posed in her sword dancer’s outfit and insisted on standing the whole time. I usually like to paint people sitting because their posture becomes natural and part of their personality within a few minutes.
The part of Reiko I had always seen was her spunk, energy and fun. However, as she stood stoically during the painting process, I found the enormous amount of discipline she applied to reach her goals.
Reiko was very popular in the village, so during our break, two neighbours, two of my models and childhood friends of Reiko, came to bring us tea and snacks.
We started in the idle chit-chat that people do when they are relaxing until Reiko changed the tone, reflecting, “I just thought you were just making a picture- I didn’t realize you wanted to know the history and the emotions of the people you were painting. And standing here posing today, I began to think of all the hard times I’ve had in my life, and how truly happy I am now. And I thank you.”
Her daughter, who had moved from this tiny town to LA 10 years ago, said, “I’m so fortunate to be part of this process because I never knew these things about my mother’s history, and I’m so lucky to have shared the moment with my mother.”
I think each of us in the room felt the tears welling up.
Then my daughter, Ariel, piped up from her perch underneath the paint box, “And I’m so lucky to have shared this moment with my mother.”
At that moment, none of us held back, and the tears flowed- from all of us as individuals and as a community.
Reiko was my last portrait. The journey I began in 2003 came full circle.
We all have hard things to do in life, and we go and do them, but we rarely have a moment where all our difficulties and happiness are encapsulated in a piece of art that will last forever.
That was the power of the project.
-Vivian Reiss
Yoshiko
Oil on canvas 42×54 inches
July 2006
“Winter is the season of pregnancy; winter delivers spring. / It is a time when one stores up and creates in oneself dreams, knowledge and tools”
-Yoshiko Omi (a poem)
Dawn comes early to the mountains of Japan. At 3:30 in the morning, as daylight mixed with the pristine air of Hachi, I raised my head from the buckwheat pillow to look out my window. There was Yoshiko peacefully farming her dahlias and onions. Even though she was a professional farmer and had big rice fields, this was essentially a room of her own: a place where her husband never came. Yoshiko was the most generous of neighbours; she lent me a field to garden in myself and brought me bouquets of beautifully arranged flowers, ume pickles and wine, and flats of delicate strawberries. She used to be a poet, and in the night would write me notes in perfect English hand, even though, as I learnt from my translator, Yoshiko spoke no English, she would sit with her dictionary to compose notes about the garden, seasons, festivals, and her rabbit.
One morning, I received a note in her hand very excitingly beckoning me. “The cactus flower, which blooms only one night a year, is about to bloom. Please come so you can take it to your house and watch it open.
The ephemeral flower that opens just once a year and blooms at night in silence became the theme for my portrait of her.
When my time in Hachi had ended, and I was about to drive off from the village for the last time, she approached me with a note. On the piece of paper was a sketch of her house. She wrote, ‘Above my door is a key to my house, a key to my car, and a small amount of money. Please feel free to use them any time’
-Vivian Reiss
Koto
Oil on canvas 42×54 inches
June 2006
“My father was gentle to others, and my mother was lighthearted. The secret of my cheerful personality is that my parents gave me these virtues, and I have nurtured these merits on my own.
-Koto Omi
Arriving at my apartment at the school teacher’s house, I looked up on the little ridge above me, and there was the most radiant woman tending her crops. She was glowing. I asked her immediately if she would pose for me. She laughed as I found out she almost constantly does and said, “Why don’t you find somebody younger?” As it turns out, there were very few young people in the village, and in her late 60s, she was about the median age.
After drinking a lot of tea together and laughing, she was dared to be the first of her friends to pose for me, so she showed up at my schoolhouse studio with her gloves, hoe, and perfect bundles of asparagus.
-Vivian Reiss
Tadashi
Oil on canvas 42×54 inches
June 2006
Tadashi is the community leader and stencils kimono designs.