specially ordinary in a 旅館

a short documentary about a ryokan,

a traditional Japanese inn;

this ryokan, called sakamoto, after its owner (like the composer);

but here, the art form

is food

(and hospitality)

:

‘while this guesthouse is certainly for our customers,

(shinichiro sakamoto) cooks what he want to eat,

and he designs rooms where he would want to stay

it’s not so much about “for the customers”

but rather doing what he enjoys most.’

when creating (art),

the audience comes last.

-

‘it sometimes takes an absurd amount of time, but,

there’s a unique depth that cannot be achieved instantly

that’s the beauty of it’

Time and attention as ingredients.

This reminds me of the great episode of the Netflix series Chef’s Table where they follow Jeong Kwan, a 60-year-old Zen Buddhist nun who prepares vegan meals for her community (and the occasional visitor) at Baekyangsa Temple, which is located 169 miles south of Seoul.

Soy beans, salt and water, in harmony, through time. It is the basis of seasonings, the foundation. There are sauces aged five years, ten years, aged for one hundred years.

Time and attention, as opposed to ‘instant’

‘instant quality’ then, impossible (?)

Back to the 旅館

every morning, sakamoto decides what he’s going to cook that day.

or maybe, the day decides.

more likely, it’s a conversation.

I want the local ingredients to shine, so I try not to let the cooking get in the way.

a conversation

with the place itself,

through food

through tradition

Connections, connecting, i read an article, more connections…:

Shinichiro (Sakamoto) learned the art of cooking in part from abbess Murase Myodoni, a Buddhist nun who is the head of Gesshin-ji, a Zen temple near Kyoto. Like the acclaimed Korean nun Jeong Kwan (who was featured on the Netflix show Chef’s Table), Murase was known throughout her country for her vegetarian Buddhist cuisine, called shōjin ryori in Japanese. 

let’s close this circle with a portal

final thoughts, from Jeong Kwan:

Creativity and ego cannot go together. If you free yourself from the comparing and jealous mind, your creativity opens up endlessly. Just as water springs from a fountain, creativity springs from every moment. You must not be your own obstacle. You must not be owned by the environment you are in. You must own the environment, the phenomenal world around you. You must be able to freely move in and out of your mind. This is being free. There is no way you can’t open up your creativity. There is no ego to speak of. That is my belief.

photograph Daan van der Velden

-

Go here to subscribe to my letter of news and receive my writings and updates on my other work somewhat regularly

returnal

i was in the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin. i forget the name of the artist and the work. sorry. i’ll call it: returnal

i think what drives me is some allusive quality of getting something right, whatever that means

and you never quite get it right

so you keep going and you keep going

- John Baldessari

after burning his art, Baldessari made some cookies out of the ashes.

seems reasonable!

‘only one person that i knew ever ate one.’

that also seems reasonable.

then, an interesting slip of his tongue:

‘the idea that there would be some sort of returnal, the thing that comes out of the earth, the painting, gets burned, goes back to the earth by shitting it out, and the painting then only becomes one point of the circle. i, i was truly sick :) !’

RETURNAL!

that’s great. In this way ‘return’ is also part of the eternal, the everlasting and neverending circle of being, understanding that return is not the end, just one part of it all, just like art.*

.no beginning

no ending.

everything part of everything

(*also: i’ve never realized up until now that ‘urn’ is in return. so ‘returnal’ is also urnal. ha. )

what to do?

how to begin?

‘you just gotta get to your studio every day, and do nothing but sweep up, and eventually you’ll get bored, and and you’ll try not to be bored and then that’s the beginning of creativity’

more baldessari please.

here it is.

great video!

i will not make any more boring art.

i will fail.

i will try.

time to start sweeping.

returnal

-

Go here to subscribe to my letter of news and receive my writings somewhat regularly, go here to check out my programs, and if you want to support my work you can do that right here

no fleeing just being

(difficult for a flea to be and not to flea, for to flea is to be, or to be is to flea, albeit spelled wrong(ly)*. cat: hopefully he’s just being, without the flea-ing. he doesn’t seem te be fleeing, just being, so probably not a lot of flea-ing.)

-

Go here to subscribe to my letter of news and receive my writings somewhat regularly, go here to check out my programs, and if you want to support my work you can do that right here