memory

during my summer holidays from elementary school, i was supposed to do a drawing every day showing the growth of  a “morning glory” flower i planted in the spring.  it was a combined science and art project.

i always drew the entire made-up 6-week record of the flower growing two days before school started at the beginning of september.  my drawings would end up showing a bigger, more beautiful and impressive flower than actually grew in real life.  a big bloom would show up suddenly in my drawings on august 30th or 31st.

one year, my flower died because i forgot to water it.  i did the same kind of drawings anyway.

(click the image to view close up)

anthony easton is curating a show at the art gallery of alberta based on the ed ruscha drawing, will 100 artists draw a 1950 ford from memory. he got permission from ed ruscha himself. 100 people have agreed to draw a 1950 ford from memory for this show.

anthony contacted me, so i had to draw something. i was supposed to use basic white paper - like the one you would use for desktop printing. since i had to draw from memory, i was not supposed to use any reference images of a 1950 ford.

it turns out, i have no clue what 1950 ford looks like. i have no memory of it whatsoever. i think it might look like a mama-chari bicycle. plus it says “ford” in japanese on the mama-chari, so it’s clearly a ford. the maximum team power ducks are impressed, except for the one evil duck who is trying to puncture the tires…

THE 1950 FORD SHOW
guest curator, anthony easton
september 21, 2007 – january 6, 2008
opening reception: friday, september 21, 7pm
curator’s talk: saturday, september 22, 1pm

art gallery of alberta
enterprise square
100-10230 jasper avenue,
edmonton, alberta
780.422.6223

tezuka osamu is the japanese animator known as the “father of anime”. i grew up watching his work, including “ribon no kishi” (princess knight), “fushigi na merumo chan” (marvelous melmo), and of course “tetsuwan atomu” (astro boy).

in general, i hate anime. i don’t own any manga comics. i just don’t like the style of japanese animation that’s most famous in the west — what people call “japanimation”, with the superbig eyes and supercute faces. i think it’s creepy, in a bad way. people often assume that i’m an anime fan, maybe because i’m japanese and i draw, but i really never pay attention to it.

tezuka osamu created the style with big eyes and cute faces, but somehow i still like his work. maybe it’s nostalgia, but i think his drawings are more beautiful and gracious than the style of the recent anime i’ve seen. my favorite work of his is a manga, “black jack“, which i read as a high school student.

“memory” is an animated short that uses a mixture of drawn animation and cut-out images. none of it looks like anime. you might be surprised by the style — but it looks really cool. the story is insightful about the psychology of memory of individuals and a culture. i like the idea that futuristic people will have a very different idea about us (our “toilet culture”) than we do.

youareadogyouareadogyouareadogyouareadogyouareadog……

i think i drew this in 2004. i’m scared of cats…

how scared am i?

• case study 1 (age 9): my friend showed me her tiny kitten on the street. she suggested that i hold the kitten. i refused, but she insisted. so i tried to hold it but the kitten was wriggling around in my hands and i ended up dropping it. luckily it was a cat, so it landed successfully on its feet. but it didn’t forget to glare fiercely at me. trauma.

• case study 2 (age 12): there was a famous stray cat in my town. it was a white cat with only one eye. she was a playgirl (cat). she was always pregnant - scar on her face and scar in her heart. there was always wind blowing whenever she was around. spooky and mysterious. what kind of life are they having, in the cat world?

• case study 3 (age 17): i came home from school and found a cat (evil one) taking a nap on the porch. i was too scared to walk past it, so i couldn’t go inside. i waited for awhile (hiding behind a tree) but eventually i realized i had to make a move. i threw a tiny stone (first few tries were too weak and i had to throw harder) not aiming to hit it but to make noise and scare it. no chance. it looked at the rolling stone and turned around to look at me with the least respect. i could tell it thought i was just a low class human being, ranked below this cat. shame.

in this drawing, i’m trying to trick cats into thinking, “wait a minute! am i a cat…? NO! i’m a DOG!”. and eventually every single living cat on the earth will be converted into dogs.

for some reasons, i don’t think this will work. but it’s worth a try.

this drawing will be included for sale on my online shop.

UPDATE: you can buy this drawing from my SHOP.

(click to view close up)

freshly drawn this afternoon. it’s been awhile since i’ve drawn in vivid colours. i think i’m liking it.

the kanji on the milk carton says yuki-jirushi, which means snow brand. that’s a japanese milk company that got into huge trouble a few years ago when many people around osaka got food poisoning from their low fat milk. paul was one of the first cases. interestingly, paul and i both drank from the same milk carton that day, but only paul got food-poisoning. he was really sick. later on, two men from the milk company came to the door of our apartment and apologized. they bowed very deeply and gave us a box of expensive japanese sweets. i felt bad that these two men had to apologize even though they didn’t do anything wrong.

the case was a big scandal in japan. 14,780 people got sick. you can read more about it here.

my drawing has nothing to do with the food poisoning scandal. i just like the design of the milk carton, and i’m used to since we always used to drink snow brand milk (before). my brain is very weak, like 0.1% milk.

during the taisho period in japan, a popular song in the japanese opera was コロッケの唄(”song of korokke“), which goes like this: “korokke is an everyday dish, we eat korokke today and tomorrow. are we gonna eat korokke all year around?”. “korokke” is the japanese word for croquette, the popular french food that had just been introduced to japan. japan still has popular songs about new popular foods. the croquette boom is over, but japanese people still eat a lot of croquettes. you can find them in the grocery stores and convenience stores, and they’re often served as pub food in izakaya. everybody loves croquette.

as a kid, i was one of them. i used to take swimming lessons every saturday. afterwards, i would be starving, so my friends and i would go to a meat shop to buy croquettes. the butcher would fry up some croquettes for us. i think they were 50 yen each. so it didn’t hurt my small okozukai very much, but sometimes i had to debate in my head if i should spend my money on a croquette or save it to buy a cute pencil. the meat shop and the stationery shop were on the same block. well, you can’t fight with an empty stomach :)

i always liked croquettes, but i never made them myself until yesterday. i’d never had croquette in canada, and i don’t think i’d had one for at least six years. so i made it myself.

i then realized that i’m not such a big fan of croquettes anymore. the croquettes i made turned out pretty good and tasty, but after i ate one i realized croquette is just fried mashed potato with ground beef in it. i’m not a big fan of mashed potato, nor fried food, nor ground beef, either. hmm… at least i like onion.

anyway, the croquette wasn’t as tasty as i remembered. i guess you can never beat the food in your memory.

either that, or the butcher in my hometown just makes way better croquettes than me :D

i still enjoyed making the croquettes and serving them. i wrote paul’s name in japanese on them in ketchup. he was happy.

recipe

this is for 10 croquettes:

• 2 potatoes (medium)
• 100g ground beef
• half an onion, chopped
• nutmeg
• bay leaf
• flour, beaten egg, panko (japanese bread crumbs)
• vegetable oil
• s + p

sauce:

• ketchup + worchestershire sauce + red wine + grated garlic  (i just used ketchup)

how-to:

1. boil the potatoes with skins on.
2. saute the onion. when it turns transparent, add the beef, nutmeg and bay leaf.
3. when the potatoes are done, strain the hot water and mash them in a bowl. set aside.
4. when the beef mixture is ready, damp it onto paper towel to soak up the extra grease.
5. add the beef mixture to the mashed potato, mix lightly (do not overmix).
6. move the mixture onto a plate and cool in the fridge.
7. heat the vegetable oil in a pan. arrange the dipping station for flour, egg, and panko. i used tupperwares.
8. divide the cooled mixture and shape into balls and flatten them. make sure there are no cracks or it’ll explode in the oil. it’s better to wet your hand with some oil so the mixture won’t stick to your hands.
9. when the oil is heated to 170c (if you drop in some of the flour and water mixture and it drops to the bottom and comes back up, the oil is about 170c), dip the ball into flour, egg and panko. i use my right hand for dry ingredients and left for wet so that the panko doesn’t get stuck together with egg. that way, you can get a clean result.
10. turn them when they’re golden brown. cook both sides.
11. when fried, put them onto paper towl to soak up the extra oil.
12. serve them with cabbage and tomato. cabbage is supposed to help you digest greasy food. i like rice on the side.

enjoy! (or not so much…)