I write, erase, rewrite
Erase again, and then
A poppy blooms
— Katsushika Hokusai
I love this beautiful haiku about the process of creation. It is by the great Japanese woodcut artist Hokusai.
Yesterday, I landed back in New Zealand from a research trip to Japan. I was there with my husband, writer and filmmaker Stuart McKenzie and our youngest daughter Davida. Here you can check out Stuart's Insta posts about our time.
We began by looking at the work of the painter and print-maker Hokusai (1760 — 1849). And we ended our trip with a visit to an incredible collaboration between the artist Rei Naito and the architect Tadao Ando, this meditative concrete structure, built on a tiny island called Teshima in the Seto Inland Sea.