Johnny Appleseed…

This is the 39th week of our calligraphy challenge and the prompt was to do something inspired by Johnny Appleseed. As we are traveling in Japan I decided to use local items I could purchase in the hardware store in my step daughter’s tiny town of Aizuwakamatsu. I bought rice paper and black and vermillion brush ink pens to develop this idea.

We saw a poster while visiting the castle in Aizuwakamatsu, it is shown below. I liked the graphic elements of the circles, so when I read the prompt was about apples I was inspired. The inks bled more than they would on Art quality rice paper, but I still like what I created. And I love the fact that I could buy art supplies at a hardware store.

I was pleasantly surprised to find art supplies in a hardware store. Funny how we expect things in other places to be just like our place. We somehow think that our way is best or the only way things are done. When we travel we learn that the rest of the world sees and does things differently than we do. We experience that other people do things better than we do or they interpret things differently. Our minds are expanded simply by realizing that not everyone thinks and does things exactly the same as we do.

In Japan it makes sense that paper and Sumi ink would be sold in almost any store. Students here learn to write with a brush at an early age and of course they sell the supplies for those lessons anywhere a parent might shop. Never crossed my mind because where we live art supplies are very different than hardware or home repair implements. Travel reminded me that our way is not the only way and people in other places often have better ways of doing things than we do.