TEMPLE HAWK
ACRYLICS ON CEDAR W/RED OAK FRAME
SPRING 2021

     Paintings on cedar always attract my attention (naturally).  I was recently watching an Instagram video by Japanese ceramics expert Robert Yellin when a painting of a hawk caught my eye.  Yellin was visiting Renge-ji, the Buddhist temple located in the northern part of Kyoto.  As he panned the inside room before going out into the temple’s wonderful garden, he showed a painting of a soaring hawk on one of the cedar doors of the room.  I wasn’t able to get a very good look; however, that glimpse was enough to stir my imagination and acted to inspire me to paint something similar.  I chose to paint a very stylized version of a soaring hawk as seen from above.  The design for my hawk was inspired by both Northwest Coast Native and Celtic art traditions.  The overall style of this painting was inspired by a pair of painted cedar fusuma (sliding doors) by Rinpa artist Watanabe Shiko entitled Cranes (see Yasumura, Toshinobu, Rimpa: Decorative Japanese Painting, ©2011, pages 200-201).  Shiko simply painted his cranes directly on the wooden sliding doors at Daikaku-ji in Kyoto, and so I have painted my hawk in similar fashion, isolated but in harmony with the beauty of the wood grain.  I made the frame out of red oak using pegged, hand-joined, mortise-and-tenon construction methods.  I used the Japanese technique (shou-sugi-ban) of charring and oiling the oak to finish the frame.
 
DIMENSIONS:          HEIGHT:  17 ½ inches
                                  WEIGHT:  19 ½ inches
 
                                                        PRICE $500

Cranes by Watanabe Shiko