MUSASHINO

Indigo blue is mixing into dark burnt umber little by little.
At the right next place, I can see yellow slightly covering on white and dry stones which are also mixed light purpleish gray.
Tomomi sits on stone stairs and is gazing on an edge between stones and the ground through a square frame which is half inches by half inches. The frame was created to cut two L shape white thick papers and put together by clips. It is very easy to creat. Ryu-suke was using the handmade frame and it seemed to be very convenient. So, Tomomi also started to use it. Ryu-suke was talking that he was taught it by a teacher, Churchill. If we use it, we can creat various shapes and scales squares from one inch to ten iches freely, and it is very convenient when we decide a composition and look something with concentration.
Even stones and the ground, if we keep looking it for a while, in just burnt umber or gray which we first look, we come to see various colors with covering, creating graduations and mixed like particles. Tomomi is quickly selecting colors from 36 oil pastels and putting it on her skech book. With putting colors like pointillism or rubing by her fingers, she creats colors on papers, which are similar to her impression as close as possible sensuously.

Autam is getting deeper and deeper, fallen leaves are drifting on the ground gradually. Stone stairs on which Tomomi sits also feel moist and comfortable. Because it is day time, people are here and there in Inogashira Park and it shows the appearance of silence.
Now, Tomomi is creating some combinations of colors of textiles. She is accepting the works by each seasons contract from a textile manufacturer which produces bed covers, sheets, handkerchieves, towels and so on.
She did various types of works from her network like her shool day's friends, company brochure, poster, name card, CD jacket, industrial related and so on.
But, now her regular clients are in a textile manufacturer, an advertising company in Shinjuku and a foregin design firm which Yuriko introduced. Among those works, this textle work is one of her favorite works, because she can create on her own way.

When she dicide a combination of colors, she tries to pick up colors from natural materials as much as possible rather than from phot or computer's color plate. It is because it is fun and she is thinking that there are natural mysteries in nature.

From bright crimson to yellow and then to brown, a surface of fallen leave is gradually changing. Yellow green veins of leave. After that, she tries to look some points in a little far landscapes. At a forest which just starts to turn red, some parts still a lot of green are left, the sun light flow both red and green parts. I can see the whole forest like through a bright yellow filter. Except oil pastels, she also uses color pencils and anyhow tries to discribe the feeling.

For a while, Tomomi just sat and picked up colors at various points with using her handmade frame. And then, she started to walk a little.
I think, try to pick up colors of moving water in the lake. Water color is color mixed brown and dark green. Light is reflecting and moving softly. But, it is a little difficult.
I walk again for a while and pick up colors of a truck of a tree. It is almost black, brown grain of wood. And, there are some silver stripes. From the brightest parts, the stripes are melting ito the trucks gradually, so they have the feeling of metal. it is chic color like Chanel or Givency.
A name plate, Soro is put on a truck of a tree.
I take care other trees' name plates.
When I went up a slope a little, I found some trees put name plates again. The name plates are put thinly, so I feel, it is a little moody. There are some English translations on them here.
Hinoki/Japanese Crypress, Inushide/Caprinusu Tschonoskii, Sawara/Sawara Crypress, Akamatsu/Japanese Red Pine, Egonoki/Styrax Japonica...Japanese is kind about this kind of stuff to a foreigner or just written exact academic names ?

I pay an entrance fee and also go into Natural Curtural Park today. And, I try to pick up colors of fishes and animals. Anyway, Tomomi lives in very good place to pick up natural motives.

First of all, I will enter Aquatic Creature Museum. It is cozy. And, the scale is not so big. At the entrance, " the difference between aquarium and acuatic creature museum " is written. " This is different from aquarium which mainly exhibit fishes. We exhibit aquatic creatures in a large sense, which include not only freshwater fishes but also amphibians, insects and plans...." this kind of explanations are written.
Yamame, Hoze, Iwana(char), Itou, Minatago, Kusagame(grass tortoise), Oosansyouo, etc. If we watch exactly, a lot of aquatic creatures are like swimming in a water tank. Only one king fisher sometimes stays on a branch.
At this time, I not only pick up colors, but also draw some sketches with color pencils.

From 4 inches to 8 inches, small ayus are swimming in a water tank. Slowly, the ayu is floating and quickly twists its body and starts to swim with drawing a streamline. And it slows down again. And, other ayus are also repeating the same motion with crossing. So, they are creating very comfortable rythms and an ensamble.
Picaso's line drawn casually but beautifully. Ashle Gorky's line. Hokusai's line by brush and no redrawing.
I pick up one blue pencil among color pencils and skech some ensambles of ayus' loci on my skech book.

I have already created a lot of color combinations on my sketch book. But, by the way, I decide to watch a part of wild birds briefly.
When I got close to a cage of wild birds, a group of three persons with rucksacks turned their faces.
I though, what ? So, they were recording bird's notes. There are a lot of small rocks on the ground. I might had made some noises.
One of them is a white young man who seems to be honest. And, he is in jeans and with a green rucksack. The rest of two person might be Japanese. A little short and thick boy wearing a ski hat and a girl is in a moss green half jacket which seems to be made of good stuff and a red muffler around her neck. They are this kind of trio.
Tomomi also tried to listen to birds' notes and got close the cage. So, she seemed to make noises again. And, a boy with a sky hat had gone to other cages like disturbed his mood.
Birds'name in front of Tomomi is Karigane. And, they are making goro, goro, goro....., goro, goro, goro.... like sounds of wood clockwork.
A young white man and a girl who have stayed are laughing with trainning a mike on Karigane with closing their mouths like funny something.
They have very compact recording equipments on their hands. It might be a similar recording equipment, DAT which Tomomi is also using a similar recording at this time film shooting. Nowadays, not only replaying thechnology but also recording equipment which is very compact and high quality, come onto the general market. The microphone which a white young man has, put on a cover avoiding wind noises and more professional.

Tomomi also not only bird's color, tried to listen to bird's notes carefully.
There are duck, mandarin duck, crane, swan and so on. Ka, ka, ka, ka, ka....., pyu, pyu, pyu....., kyu-ne, kyu-ne......, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah......, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah like that. Although it is the matter of course, each bird is making each different note.

The trio a little while ago, each person is recording birds' notes separately. They are a kind of not bird watchers but bird listeners. I feel, they really seem to be fashionable. They seem to be a kind of NGO or backpacker rather than fashionable.
What is their purpose to record birds' notes ? Except birds' notes, they are trainning mikes on river, grass and so on. One is trainnig a mike on the sky. Is he recordig the sounds of wind ? Or, they are just people who are listening to bird notes instead of music ?
I feel the ski hat boy is, his eyes are very sharp considering that he is a Japanese.
That girl is, she ties her hair and her face feels clear. But, the way of coordinate is not like Japanese.
They are possibly Asians except Japanese who might come sightseeing in Japan. Or, they might be studying abroad and just coming back with friends as a vacation.
When I went out, the trio was getting together again. So, I passed by them and listened to. As they were talking in Japanese, they were Japanese as I thought.

I go through a gate of Acquatic Creature Museum, go up a slope and go out a road which cars go through. And, I go to a main park in which there are animals.
There are no animal which we can say a lossleader in a zoo, like lion, tiger, giraffe, bear and so on. Here is not a zoo but Natural Cultural Park.
It is cozy. There are mainly small and middle animals like monkey, squirrel, goat, sheep, raccoon dog. But, there is an Asia elephant. At the center, we can find yakusika and tanchou( crane ) grazing freely to keep Musashino ( Musashi-field ) that used to be. At the bottom of the park, there are also small pond, Japanese garden, sculpture museum.

As I can not feel easy so much, I will look all quickly and go home.
Dama wallaby, about 2-3 feet small kangaroo. I used it as a character last year, but I do sketch it again. At the next place, there is fonexes. It is a menber of the dog family in Egypt and Arab.
A trio a while ago also made their appearance. They seem to record animal notes too. In this park, there are families with children, students, some adults here and there.
Tomomi watched badgers and hakubishins with passing and went to the place of Asia elephant.

The Asia elephant seemed to be unsually very tired.
When Tomomi first saw this elephant, it was more than five years ago, this elephant was still vigorous. But, this female elephant that was born in 1947, is very old for elephant.
In this main park, I did not come since last year. Last year, she was in a cage. So, I did not know her condition so much.
Compared to other animals, the elephant is in a little large concrete space. And, she stands at about 11 yards from Tomomi and stays like a stone which has no sign of moving.
The elephant seemed to be exhausted and have no interests in anything.

Tomomi was watching her for a while. But, she did not know what to do. So, she was wondering to go away from the place. But, she recalled about Prof. Doctol someone who is a doctor who can talk to any kind of animal freely. And, she suddenly thought of trying to talk to the elephant anyhow at that time.
But, she is an elephant. So, we should not talk with her in Japanese. Even if I clap my hands, she does not look to my direction and it might be difficult for her to listen to the sounds from here to there. And, I feel, the elephant, whose body is many times as big as her, never respond to such clipping my hands...
So, after Tomomi was thinking about various ways, she decided to send memories which she had watched that the elepahant was eating and walking, when she was still vigorous. And also, those images and her mind that she wanted the elephant to cheer up.
Tomomi did not know how to communicate with an elephant and had never done it before. But, she felt that there were some ways. And, she kept sending images and a kind of mass of her minds without giving up, like looking for inside her head, just putting her hands on a circular steel fence and watching the elephant at some distance.

The elephant started to move slowly.
And, when she was walking from the end to the middle, a child who watched it, was getting close to the fence at just next to Tomomi.
There are a small valley between the plain concrete on which the elephant is and the fence where Tomomi stays for that the elephant can not come beyond the valley. And, there is a little high step on the edge.
First of all, the elephant, what !, got into a pose for the child who was coming close, with lifting up her long nose and put one foot on the step, although she had never moved like a stone just a while before.
A parent who watch that is frantically trying to take a photo of the child with the elephant, like now is the time.
And then, the elephant naturally came to Tmomi. And, she was getting close to Tomomi making roars, blowing her breath and already bum bum, lifting her nose up and down.
Tomomi was a little suprised, although it was good that the elephant became vigorous. The elephant's nose reached out toward Tomomi, almost her breath splashing. So, Tomomi stepped back a little. And, she was facing to the elephant for a while. But, after that, she became that she did not know what to do. The elephant was lifting her nose up and down and blowing her breath as before.

Tomomi turned her direction and decided to go away from the place.
After she walked about 50 yards, she turned round. So, the elephant was looking at Tomomi fixedly.
People sitting on benches looked at Tomomi a little and turned their eyes away like what is this one ?
And, when Tomomi turned around again, it was a time when the elephant turned and went back to the bottom.

After this experience, her thought about animals changed a little. Tomomi Nakahara is not a person who loves animals unreasonably. And also, she does not like it or thinking that it is not correct to personify animals and understand them within the range of human understanding like putting human social rules or customs. But, she thought that a big scale animal like elephant have mind or thought that is close to a human being. Animals should not have thought by language like a human. But, something which is similar to, but different from it.
It was said that a dorphin or a whale can exchange messages by ultrasonic waves something, even if they are in the sea, opposite side each other on the earth.
An elephant might have something close to it and totally different from the human five senses.
Anyway, Tomomi thought, it is terrible mistake that human science make clear about everything about animals.


* there is no schedule of next up load now. thank you for reading this text anyway. 8/2000
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