"TOM NAKASHIMA found himself in fifteen states from the time he was born in Seattle until he grew up, in Iowa. His grandfather, a two-sword samurai, contrary to contemporary movement, took a covered wagon east. That's not true, Tom laughs: But the old man's ship did have a sail, and the lady he took for his wife had been a food taster for the Empress of Japan. That, plus the fact that his mother is Canadian, may or may not have anything to do with Tom's art ---- or that he toys with computers, plays games on grids, but has hair that is black and shaggy. That's him: depicted in the black ink brush paintings of wild and craggy bamboo mountain hermits. He could double, when he laughs, for Kanzan, but he passes you on the Appalachian streets in a Pontiac or a pick-up truck. "
WILL PETERSEN, Morgantown, WV - 1978.
Kanzan
Will and Tom - Chicago, IL.
Great Grandfather and Great Grandmother Nakashima
Grandfather and Grandmother Speagle





"He (Will) used the pontiac & pickup for alliteration and later changed it to a Post Office Truck."
ReplyDeleteBill - the green pattern you used is one I used to use regularly in by patterned paintings between 1974 & 1980. It is an pattern often seen in Asian art and craft and is most commonly used as a means of making fish scales. I believe i have also seen it inverted (with the curve at the top) and used for distant waves. The method used for drawing this pattern is to make a grid and turn it 45 degrees so that it appears as a rhombus pattern. Then the curve is drawn within.
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