Art Exhibit with Nami

My piano teacher Nami-san invited me to an art exhibit with her.  Since she is my only Japanese friend, and I pay her so I'm not sure how much that counts, I wanted to go.  Even though I live in Japan it takes a real effort to interact with Japanese people and feel engulfed in the culture.  

The exhibit featured a painter Jiro Takemura, who died a few years ago.  The exhibit was put on by his children and was actually in his art studio.  It was pretty much the top floor of a house in an neighborhood.  The bottom floor was where his wife taught opera lessons.  The house were the previously lived was nearby.

I didn't even notice the laundry hanging in the window until just now.  Maybe I am getting more used to the culture than I realized.

It was only one train stop from my house and I met Nami outside the station.  Everyone there was very kind and welcoming.  Of course things are a little awkward for me when everyone is speaking Japanese because I cannot understand any of it.  But I'm ok with feeling a little uncomfortable.

I don't think they wanted us to take pictures directly of the paintings.  Nami sent me most of these pictures.  She was documenting the entire thing for her cousin who couldn't come.  One of the opera students from years ago sang and then someone Nami knew played the guitar.  After that they gestured to the piano and asked if anyone else wanted to play.  It was funny because my piano teacher tried to get me to play but there was no way I was going to do that.  At my last lesson Nami said I could only play the song at a 30% proficiency level.  I told her that she should play but she smiled like she was embarrassed and refused.  I happen to know that she is an amazing piano player.  Her parents teach piano lessons for their entire income so she learned young and as an adult she lived in Vienna for 8 years studying under some piano master.

Since no one else wanted to play we went back to looking at art and talking to people she knew.  

After about an hour she told me she had to leave in like fifteen minutes and do I want to go with her or stay.  I wanted to go, the whole place was the size of one living room.  I'm not sure what else I could have done there.  I don't want that to sound like I didn't like it.  I totally enjoyed myself.  The paintings were mostly local so it was neat to see if I could recognize the locations.

As we were on our way out she said that the guitarist was going to show us a tree.  I had no idea what that was about but it has been my experience that Japanese people are very proud of their trees.  Before we made it to the tree I saw the largest clam shell I've ever seen.  It was literally about 2 feet across.

And here is the tree.  The larger one to the right is the famous one.  I really don't know why it was famous or what the significance was.  The tree next to it was way cooler.

It was burned on the inside and pretty interesting to look at.

It was an interesting outing.  I totally felt like I could picture the life of this couple with the husband upstairs painting and the wife simultaneously teaching opera lessons downstairs in a little Japanese neighborhood.