I’ve been often asked why eyes are on my paintings a lot. Well, it’s a good question.
Before, I did not think about it.
In Japan, I’d never painted eyes. They started coming on my canvases here in San Francisco.  

Moving here alone, leaving my own country, family and friends, was not always so much fun. Life and customs are different. Language is like a math form, and from time to time, I feel I’m going to become lost where I am.

One day, my mother in Japan gave me these words:
"Everybody comes to be born in this world alone, and when we finish our time, everybody leaves this world alone again."

When I heard these words, I realized that it is up to me to live my life in my own way.

I mean, all of the things I see and feel in this world around me are just coming out from inside of me, depending on my state of mind. And now, I found that those eyes in my paintings are my own eyes after all. It is just like, when you read a novel, you follow the eye of the main character, and the other characters are all just gushing out to make the context of his story.
It opened my eyes to have learned that I could control my life better simply by changing my own viewpoint.

Now, I feel like I have two ‘mes’ in my life. one is what is actually struggling in this life in my body, and the other is watching that me from above. When I get trapped in strong emotions, I talk with my other eye which is observing and tells me that it is not that hard from its objective view.

In that sense, when you get stuck in depressing situation, once you separate your eye from your body and start seeing yourself putting a little distance from your actual body, you can have a clearer vision. Pain and suffering are mostly coming from the subjective state of your mind.

I know that my art is very emotional, but I can express my emotions on my canvas so strongly because I borrow from what my other objective eye is watching about me.

I also feel the power that is always watching and leading me from above. My appreciation for the connection with the power always make me feel humble, and I love that feeling.

Time flies…
I feel like I’ve started painting the illustratoins for this Panda story, "Okin the Panda Bear Fined his Family", just a couple of weeks ago.
But it’s actually 6 months had already passed!

Now, "Okin" is coming out to the world making this colorful book with more than 30 illustrations which I’ve created for this book.
Isn’t it gorgeous? *smile*

"Okin the Panda Bear Finds his Family"

The story is about a little blue panda bear named Okin, who was ‘different’ from other panda friends. And getting through some heartwarming happenings, Okin eventually finds his place and a new family where he can be really happy being as what he is.

When I got the script from my publisher at its start, I found myself smiling reading the story. Story is simple, but containes some interesting themes, such as ‘two Daddy’ family, mixed colors, child adoption, sign language, etc. Especially, being an Artist in San Francisco where different cultures and various values on the styles of love are jostling each others, I felt a lot of empathy in this little tale. It was rather amazing that Jeff could weave such various subjects in this short story.

Jeff Lutes, who is the author of "Okin the Panda Bear Fined his Family", is a licensed sychotherapist, writer, public speaker, and social justice advocate in Austin, Texas. He is a member of the American Counseling Association, the International Association for Relationship Research, Counselors for Social Justice, the Association for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, & Transgender Issues in Counseling, the Council on Contemporary Families, and the Society of Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators.

And through the conversations with Jeff in the process of my illustration painting, I found he wrote this story based on his own life. Jeff and his partner, Gary Stein, are the proud fathers of three children they adopted as a couple. Gary and two of their children are deaf. American Sign Language is the primary mode of communication in their home. It is no wonder why all charactors and words are so vivit and lively here.

I am a believer in the third sex.
While homosexuality often has hard time to be accepted in some societies, I have to say that we could not forget that those non-sense custom was built mainly by the influence from religions. Before them, in the ancient cities that had built high advanced cultures such as ancient Rome, homosexuality was rather regarded as noble form of love.
Even in Buddhism, we Japanese has a famous story, " Chigo no sora ne- 稚児のそら寝", which shows Buddhism monks had some little boy in their temples with them for their sexual needs. I remember that I have learned this custom in a class at my junior high school.

If you are interested in digging into this subject about homosexuality and gay culture more, I would like to introduce these two great resources.

What the Science says and Doesn’t say – About Homosexuality by Jeff Lutes

What the Bible says anddoesn’t say – About Homosexuality by Mel White

Anyway, in this Art world in San Francisco, I’ve been blessed with the chances to work with gay people. Most of them are wonderful business people who have keen sense of beauty, detail oriented and they are generally very romantic and sweet.
I love gay people.

Meanwhile, one of other main themes of this book was "Sign Language".
It was my first interesting challenge to create a hand sign list.

Here is the process of creating this chart. Click thumbnails to view lager images.

1. draw painting base line	2. paint hands	3. paint back
4. scan all hands	5. extract each hands	6. make a grid by illustrator
7. copy grid on photoshop	8. inlay hands	9. add back
10. add alphabets	11. hide grid	12 add frame line

"Okin the Panda Bear Fined his Family" has some quize pages in the end of the story where you can learn sign language playing with fun activities.
Let’s practice sign language alphabet and challenge the quize!

You can now order this fabulous book online.
Please visite Hiroko Sakai Fine Art Online Shop/ books / "Okin the Panda Bear Fined his Family"
Each books from my website comes with my hand signature.

Thank you~*

In these couple of weeks, my website marketing have been taking all my times. Even in my dreams at nights, I’ve been submitting my website links to search engines.

You know, in last February, Google changed their search algorithm for what they calls "high-quality" content, which has dramatically shaken up the businesses of websites that moved up or down its search rankings.
What dose it mean?
I believe this comment I’ve found in Websites to Google; "You’re killing our business!" would tell you all;

"My God. I just lost 40% of my traffic from Google today," said commenter DickBaker. "Referrals from Yahoo, Bing, direct sources, and other sources are the same, but Google dropped like a rock."

Actually, this is never other people’s problem to me. As an artist, who’s been working on my art exposure in this internet world, I am also the one who got some negative impacts from there.

In these past some months, the numbers of the inquiries from my Online Gallery Shop had dropped a lot. I was wondering what’s going on.
At first, I naturally thought it was because of the current severe social situation being caused by the recession of the world, but after all, I had found that my website Google page ranking had got dropped so my shop website was not getting shown on the top of Google search as before anymore.
It was a shocking discovery, but on the other hand, it brought me a new hope.

If the silence of my online gallery was caused by the world economical depression, it would be a little hard for me to control it, but it seems like this problem was being caused by the bad effect of this website ranking status. Then why not to learn about this new SEO things a bit more?
The brighter news was that it was something which I could manage by myself for the better change. Fortunately or unfortunately, I am not a rich fat world famous artist who could afford to hundreds and hundreds dollars to hire professional SEO people, but time is always on my hands. Besides, I love playing with those new information and puzzles.
I lost no time in getting to work!

OK, so now let’s see what I’ve got….

Regarding to the complicated references of the new SEO techniques for improving website rankings, you could find thousands of suggestions from other smart internet experts in "Google search", such as ‘Google Challenging SEO Rules‘, ‘SEO rules have changed. Do you know the new rules?‘, so I am not going to give you more tortures to keep reading my funny English on and on, but I could add a couple of tips which I can share from my actual experiences here.

Firstly, please take a peek at my page;
"URL submission resources for website marketing".

Here is the list where you can submit your website URL for free or a little fee or reciprocal Link. I also have listed some pay services which you can use for your website marketing.

I made this SEO list
originally for my personal use, but since it made an useful list, why not to share with friends who support my art?

One tip for search engine submissions here is that some search engines keep the links for lifetime by one time submission, but some drops in some months, so it is important to keep submitting your URL to them constantly. I will also keep adding new links, so I would like to encourage you to book mark this page to add your SEO references. *thanx*

Secondly, What I would suggest is listing you and your art in ‘quality’ artist profile listing websites.
While I have listed some of them in my page above, in internet world, you could find hundreds artist listing websites which also providing the service of selling your art with. I think it is a good idea to list your information on them as long as they offer you to add your website links.

By the way, most of them offer artists profile placements for free, but if you want to sell your artwork with them, you may be asked for some fee.
But wait! Before you take your credit card out from your pocket, I would encourage you to take a little time to make some research.

Check their Google page ranking.

Even the website looks very neat and cool, if their monthly fee is high and their page ranking is low, they could be making money rather from artist registration fee than actually selling art there.

Also you can check Google search results, putting some keywords like "buy art online", not "sell art online". You know what I mean?
Your target is the art buyers who are checking search engines to find and buy art, not the artists who are looking the places to sell their art, right? Then you have to list your art on the places where art buyers check up on first.
When you fish, you put a bait which fish likes, not the bait which you like. Marketing is the same. To scatter baits in the right places, you must always think from the side of your target.

Here, as one of the effective artist listing websites for your art prints sale, personally, I would recommend Fine Art America.
I’ve been on their website for more than three years now, and they are the only artist website who is actually selling my art prints to bring me checks constantly.

Besides, their fee is very reasonable. You just need to pay thirty dollars once in a year. It’s not the monthly fee.

Once you get your gallery page up, you may need some marketing to let the world know about your art and your shop. I usually place my ads on free classifieds, also social networks service page, such as my facebook fan page.

Also, if you want to be more serious, you could open your own online art gallery shop linking those outside services as the extension of your online shop. In that way, you can own your shop online without worrying about shopping cart, customer support and any other complicated works to deal with the sales. You just need to work on building the traffics. Rest are taken care of by the printing service website people.

In that meaning, this Fine Art America is a very reliable service where I can send my customers to with my confidence.
Isn’t this an impressive story?;
One day, I’ve got contact from them. They said that they got an order of my art print, but my digital artwork image I uploaded to them had ‘slightly’ unnatural light spot and they made me fix it for three times until they gave me their OK to put it on their printer.
It was some extra work, but it gave me confidence on their sense of responsibility to provide better products to their customers.

I hope those tips would be some helps for your successful website marketing.

In this current uncool world economical situation, most artists’ lives are struggling. Even some art galleries where I’ve shown my art at had to close their doors in San Francisco, too.
I do not blame people if they wanted to buy food rather than art which dose not fill their stomachs in these days.

But after all, this situation rather opened my eyes for the new possibilities of my art marketing in internet world.

Compare with the old time maestros who did not have so many options for their art exposure other than depending on the connections of professional art dealers, we are lucky to live this cyber society where we could develop new markets as wide as we want without relying on those traditional methods so much. We just need ideas, knowledge, times, patience and challenging spirits.

In fact, the traditional way of the art exposure at physical gallery shows are fancy and cool, but honestly, it could have brought too much works to an artist like me, who do not speak language here so perfectly, who do not know even how to start car engine to transport my art, and in the bargain, who is a single mom with a little wild one who’s been really good at messing up my schedule.
As you may already know, to make a show at a gallery takes a lot of energy and times of artist. Starting with art submission, interview meeting, preparing for information, art transportation, sending out invitations, hanging (depend on the type of galleries), attendance to art opening reception, etc, etc…. And the greatest thing is that there is no guarantee that your art could actually sell in the show. Time to time, I could not help but feel like what I was doing was just decorating galleries pretty for free labor?

Ofcause I understand you say that it is important to have your art out in front on people’s eyes constantly. But in my experiences, unless you got a chance to show at famous or well-known galleries, the show at ‘some’ galleries would not leave you so much credits. I have shown at several places in San Francisco till now, but not so many special things left on my hand which I could add to the developments of my art career here.

In those wander, I’ve started being infused with new hopes in this modern generation tool where you can keep spreading your information to all over the world 24 hours 7 days without respite.
If you established original connections of your art in internet, the effect and possibility could be limitless.

Moreover, the best part of this ‘independent’ internet marketing is that you do not need to worry about the reactions of art galleries who mostly like to have art that can sell. As long as you market your art by yourself, you are the boss. You don’t need to worry about making any "compromise" on your artistic calling to modify your works to suit other people’s market conditions.

To be known in the world is a very important job for artists. Marketing art in internet makes it possible to spread your name and art as wide as you wish. The wider you spread your art, the more chances you could get to have them reach to various buyer’s eyes. Actually, my art has been selling more actively online than physical gallery shows these days, having my paintings get "adapted" by the art patrons from many different places in the world, whom I could have never met if I was just showing at San Francisco local galleries.

My future dream is, I hope that someday comes when these two ways, traditional way and modern way, meet together. I mean, spreading my art in internet to the world widely, I want to have a cosy base here in San Francisco where I can make my art showing them at a few relaxing regular galleries who truly love my art.

Being an Artist, I often wonder,
"What is Art?".

For making a life as a living thing, I don’t see so much special meanings in Art there. Only to keep our body to live, what we may need is just some simple basic things, such as food, water, air etc.. and other things could come along as subordinate matters. But still, I know that our spirits can not live without Art.

In these couple of days, my work schedule gave me a lot of hustles and I could hardly have times to be myself. In the fuss, something hazy and irritating started getting piling up in me and they kept growing to pop at the end.

But I eventually had a chance to stop for some minutes to turn on my favorite CD.
As soon as the music started, the waves of the sound surged into my stomach and I felt some beautiful strained energy started sublimating all the black fogs into the air which had been accumulated in my soul. Feeling something in me floating up in the air to be held in clear power, my vision started fading into my inner world.

(Angela Gheorghiu : Vissi D’arte, Tosca, Puccini)

Why our souls get so shaken when we touch these special creative juices called ‘Art’?

I am a believer in the existence of the incorporeal spirits in our body. Scientifically, our bodies are composed of the sum total of the carbon. Then, why the mass of carbon can move, think and feel? Wouldn’t it be a little lame to explain them with some electrical responses?
I rather feel that our bodies are just the carriages of the spirits. The true characters of us are the shapeless form of energies we have in the core.

 
(Sylvie Guillem : Bolero)

"Sylvie Guillem" is already my Goddess. Her strength to control herself and her body to pursue her expression is my goal.
I saw Guillem’s Bolero in Japan in 90′s, which was sealed by her in 2005. This performance was specially danced again in 2007 for memorial stage for Maurice Bejart in Tokyo, Japan.

When I saw her stage for the first time, I got a thunder struck. I did never expect a female dancer danced this Bolero. Still Guillem’s Bolero was neutral. I felt as if I were watching a well-honed performance which is being danced in the banquet of Gods there.
I believe that is the power of Art to release our spirits to transfer to anywhere beyond times and physical distances riding on the waves of the energy that the inspirations leads, no matter where our bodies are at.

 
(Kseniya Simonova : Sand Animation)

People who were born with special talent are called ‘Gift".
But ‘Gift’ is not meant only to describe themselves. ‘Gift’ is also meant for their talents to be shared for us, being the mediums to transmit the God’s energy to our hearts through their various ways of expressions.

(Valentina Lisitsa : Liszt, Totentanz) 

What the mysterious power of the Gifts is, if you met them in regular daily lives, they could be quite ordinary persons, but once they stand on the stage of expressions, they transform themselves into divine possessions using their body as the transmitter of the revelation from the power above us. Those metamorphosis always give me goose bumps.

After all, I may be able to say that Art is the essential energy which feed our spirits, connecting our individual souls to the power above.

What are we artists for?
We are for showing you what you’ve wandered for to find the home of your spirit…
Today, I wrote about Gifts in third person form ‘They’, but someday, I wish the day comes when I could write ‘We’.

 
(Hiroko Sakai Fine Art)

Being a Japanese Artist in San Francisco, one of the best ranking questions from people to me is;

"What brought you to San Francisco from Japan?"

Well, here is my speech that I’ve made for an Art event at Lindsay Unified School District where I was invited as their guest Artist in 2008, and I believe this explains all to you.

Lindsay is a city in Tulare County, California, United States.
Many people from Mexico are living in this city to work in agriculture area leaving their own country. I was asked to share my experiences with them which I got through to have ended up to be an artist in San Francisco, leaving my own country Japan.

It is a little awkward feeling to share such a goofy private story, but since I put this speech on my website, I’ve got so many responses from overwhelming numbers of people from all over the world telling me how they were encouraged and how they were even saved from their wander in their lives, so I decided to keep this speech on my blog here.

You know, if somebody’s getting depressed in life, I would say, "Look at me’. I’ve got here believing in me. Sometimes, things do not go as you expected and you could feel as if you were ruining everything. But Everything can be only the path to get to the success of your dream. You can not fail until you give up. As long as you keep going, you are on the path for your success.

OK, here we go.
I hope you enjoy.

———————————————————————

Today, I would like to talk about some pieces of my black comedies how I ended up to be a Japanese Artist in San Francisco.

I was born in Fukuoka Japan. It is located in the northern Kushu island and is one of the Japanese main cities.

My father is doing karate master after retiring his bank work. He is one of the international licensed master who has his own karate organization in Japan. My mother is also enjoying her after retired life doing volunteer for blind people, and dancing etc… They are a very energetic couple.
My younger brother is a musician in Tokyo.

My professional Art career started in the graphic Arts field in Fukuoka, Japan, in the early 1990s. After graduating from University, I founded my own commercial Art studio named Atelier Yume-Tsumugi, which means Dream weaver.
In my studio in Japan, I emphasized working on a variety of projects with varying requirements, from commercial illustrations to architectural rendering, rather than a distinct style.
When I started my career, I was still in early 20′s and very ambitious. So I did not want to limit my possibilities in one specialty.

In the start of my career, what I forced myself was, "Never say ‘ I can’t'". Whatever I got, first thing I said was "OK, I can do it".
Make the contract first, and then think.
Chances never wait. There was always huge line after me in those competitive world, and I had enough learned that it was very easy to lose my spot with one second hesitation.

In the professional commercial Art field, I was required variety skills, different mediums, computer skills, knowledge of printing effections… And not only about Art techniques, but also how to compromise with budget, connection with other services, etc… And adding to those, time was always never enough. Clients were always working hard to cut their time and budget. So, if I wanted to make my life as a commercial Artist, I had to give up sleeping.

Operating my studio everydays, I had to learn how to answer my clients’ requirements by myself. Especially, to lean how to use different mediums and tools, necessity was the best teacher.
Most people waste so much time for starting Art with going to schools or seeking some other’s instructions. Then, a lot of people end up to be just overwhelmed with too much information in the first stage, where they are not ready yet, and get scared to run away.

I have never learned Art at any schools in my life. But I have never had any problems with my works in my studio. I did make my artworks with whatever mediums required from chalks, pastels, water colors… to air brush, tile mosaics and computer graphics. All I needed was just get the new mediums and play with them for couple of hours to get used to. The staffs at the art store were also good places to ask about the new mediums. They give you all advises you need without paying such a big money for schools.

Anyway, my 20′s had passed in the sleepless life.
Everyday, mornings started with different clients deadlines.

To tell the good part, they brought me more money than doctors make here each months. In the commercial businesses, the value of art works are huge, because they are used for large markets which pay them back more.
My artworks were used for catalogs, TV commercials, posters, sings etc… and they lead the images of the products and companies to public.

Running my own art studio, I was living in a very rich life being surrounded with luxurious stuff, which the same age girls could never afford to. Also I could built great connections with celebrated people in society, calling them "my friend".

However, when you get something, you have to give up other things in return.
In those times, my life were all about my business.
All the people around me were either my staffs or clients. I had almost no friend whom I can open my heart to privately.
Also, my life there was always being pressed by overwhelming competitions and responsibilities at every minutes. My works were made based on clients’ needs, not from my original creativity. Once I failed, I could be easily replaced with the next person behind me.
In those pressures, after all, I ended up to the hospital life.

One day, I suddenly got a heavy pain on my back, and I was brought to a hospital.
The doctor said that I was getting a tumor connecting from my ovary which size was as big as my fist, but since its position was hard to check clearly from outside, he could not tell if it was benign or malignant until the surgery.
If it was malignant, he said, I might not have any chance to live, even in the best case, I would lose my womb.

The hospital room where I was put in was the room for cancer patients of womb. Some ladies were already after surgery and some were waiting for getting their wombs taken out. Some were wearing scarf on their head to hide their losing hair.

It was a shocking incident in my life. And I felt it would take all the hope out from my life.

But on the other hand, I happened to get a time to stop to look around my life, in where I had kept myself running and running. It gave me some time to think about my life deeply where I was.

Fortunately, my tumor was benign.
Thanks to God, I am still here to meet you today.

After leaving hospital, I decided to reset my life.
Following to the change, I have started yearning for making my own family, and before long from there, I got married with an American man who gave me sincere encouragement and support in my hospital life.
That was how I was brought to US.

OK, If this was a Hollywood Romance movie, the story would end here with happy ending spectacular music! …But the reality is always a little bit different….

First of all, moving to US was a totally unexpected change of my life. When I got married with him. what he was saying first was that he would move to Japan so I would not need to change my life.

After getting married in Japan, he went back to CA saying he would need to finish some works left to prepare him to move to Japan, and I waited for his return in Japan.
But he did not come back for months, then during the time, I got to know that I was getting pregnant.

After a long story, it was me who had to move to California after all, to get to know that he was actually not doing anything for moving to Japan.

In this way, my new strange life in far away country had started with big belly, strange language, and domestic violence in the bargain.

It was a big lesson for me.
In this change, what I lost was huge.

I lost my studio, I lost my career, and also I lost all the money. To move my life to California, I had spent all my savings for paying all the moving expenses, and compensations for each of my staffs’ some months salaries and equipment lease, etc..

It was too late for me to realize how I was the one of the naive Japanese girls, who do not know how to doubt other people. In Japan, people hardly miss what they once make promises and always work hard to keep their words. On the same time, I got learned why making the contract was so important in this America before starting new business.

Anyway, show must go on…

After half an year passed, I got my baby born.
By that time, the attitude of the man, whom I got married, had turned very abusive. He was always irritated and grumpy in heavy mood swings and treated me like a slave.
In his eyes, I was no more a cool successful rich woman, just an useless naive weak burden who were even struggling with making the communications in his language.
I would never forget his face when he throw an application paper on my face which he got from Macdonald, scoffing, "When can you start making money again?"

In the life, for the first time in my life, I had experienced enough what the miserable was. However, I had already had a baby there. I wanted to keep going.
But the more I tried, the worse his attitude got. I still can not believe he made me begged him to keep marring me when he threatened me saying that if I got against him, he would make me deported and I could never been able to see my baby here ever again. I was even being lost where I was.

One morning, he ordered me like a military general to stand next to him. As soon as I stand there, he grabbed my shirt’s neck and start hanging me up, asking me " Do you think the baby can sleep in such twisted shirt?"
I was choked badly and it was my limit. I told him I would want to divorce.

After that, it was a big nightmare.
One calm evening, I was milking my baby in bedroom, laying on the bed.
Suddenly, I heard rough knockings at the apartment entrance door. Next minute, two big polices ran into my room and started yelling at me in fast laud English.
I was frightened and could not know what was happening there at all.
At those time, I could not understand English so well.

Then CPS came to meet me.
It seemed like I was reported to them that I might kill my baby. And ofcause who made such a crazy drama was ‘him’.
He tried to get some police reports on me, taking advantage on my poor English, preparing for future court for custody issue.
He had a son in his previous marriage but when he got divorced, he could not get any custody on him. So this time he really wanted to get the baby.

After that, I was almost being put under the supervision of his family when he was not with me. I was even not allowed to be with my baby alone. But I tried to explain the situation to them by writing faxes every days.
Then CPS required me to go to counseling.
After all, it was a big luck for me that they found a Japanese counselor for me.

Finishing some sessions, the counselor told me that I was under domestic violence situation and I could eventually put the end on this nightmare by being saved by Asian Women’s’ Shelter in San Francisco with my baby. At that time, she was still only 4 months old.

After this, thanks to the shelter’s support, I got the start of new life in San Francisco.

Through this nightmare, I had lost everything. What still left with me there were only some of my belongings, which I could barely brought with me in one suitcase, and a tiny baby.
It was a totally strange far away country for me, where I could not even make enough communication with other people in my language. Besides, I had nobody whom I know.

I wished I could go back to Japan, but I could not.
The divorce was done in the law of California and they didn’t allow me to take my daughter back to Japan to live with me. They even require foreign parents to carry the agreement paper of other American citizen parents when we leave California to make short trips with our children for other place, such as our own countries. So I had no choice except staying in California until she gets 18 years old for keeping her custody.

I could never thank enough to the shelter through my life.
I had stayed in shelter for about 4 months and during the time, they arranged amazingly excellent supports for me to prepare for my new life, such as legal support, childcare, counseling, school for ESL, etc…. And the most wonderful thing was they had many volunteers who were from several different Asian countries, so the residents could talk and live without so much difficulties in communication and also felt easier in our own cultures.

Even after I left shelter, they still kept supporting my life closely, and also kept referring me some non profit organizations depend on my needs, until my legal case closed, such as my divorce, custody and child support, and my Green card status.

This year, it has passed almost 9 years since then.
"Time flies" is a really good saying.

After starting my life in San Francisco alone, first 4 years, it was very hard. In those times, I could not feel like doing anything but just letting the time go. I had no idea where my life was going to…
Still, I had this tiny strange existence with me who were totally depending on my care. Taking care of a baby was my very first experience. In my previous life in Japan, I had not had so many experiences with those tiny people, even holding them in my arms. Everyday became the continuations of new studies how to deal with this tiny existence.

But living one day to another, something had started coming into my view. Even how scary and standoffish the outside world was, I anyhow had to force myself to get out my apartment door everydays, for court issues, baby’s needs and other life errands.
Getting so desperate, huge anxiety was killing my stomach, but on the same time, I had started rather being determined to do anything to keep going. No matter how hard, I could not change this situation. Then, why not to change myself making this a new opportunity to rebuild my new life.

After I changed my viewpoint to accept where I was, the things became much easier. I had timidly started exploring this new world.
Looking around, my apartment was very empty. Except some dishes and clothes and a few stuff which shelter gave me when I moved in there, my main possession was only my laptop. How different the surroundings were from where I was!
It opened my eyes and made me realized how much excessive stuff I had lived my life with, being berried in and sticking on those material things.
Looking around my empty room, I thought that, in this world, we were actually not possessing anything except our own body and spirit. How easily the material things could be lost according to the change of life!
Luxurious antique furniture from Europe, thousands dollars clothes, Rolex watches, name brands bags…. they had easily gone from my life…

But now, what I have inside of my spirit, they could never be lost. I will never lose my wisdom which I have learned in my history of experiences, and I have never lose my strength and knowledge which I learned through my life path. Wherever I go, and whatever my life condition changes, they will make my life.
After realizing these points, I became very free, and I have started appreciating my simple life.

We often tend to look our frustration and complaints first. And it seems our natural habit to concentrate on what we do not have rather than what we have.
But if you look around yourself deeper, you would be surprised how much you are actually being blessed with what you have to live your life with.

Anyway, now, I can humbly appreciate that my goofy life path was worth to pay my precious life lessons. And somehow, I also can feel as if I were lead to here by the power of the existence above me.
Needless to say, for the Artists all over the world, San Francisco is the one of the dream Art cities in the world. And whatever happened in my path, I happened to have ended up here to start my new life.
While it had taken my 5 years away from my Art life to adjust my basic life here, I have eventually restarted my Art here.

First, after a long blanc, I have started drawing like sweeping out my stuck emotions which had piled up in my inside. There was no colors on my paper at those times.
Then red came back… and blue came next. One by one, colors slowly came back on my paper.
Seeing those path, I may be able to say that this was my Art healing.
I had not thought about such stuff so specially before, but getting through them, I can now see that Art has some power to heal and lead to get our twisted mental state straight back.

Creating something out brings the healthy good feelings of achievement. Also expressing own originality out into the actual visible figures can be the reverifying own existence. It is like communicating with outside world using what I have inside deep naturally.

Getting back colors in my drawings, one day, I decided to start Oil.
To be honest, I had never touched Oils until then.

Oil dries very slow and through my previous commercial Artist life in Japan, Oil was not the medium I could use for my works there where I was always pressed with heavy daily deadlines.
But as an Artist, since I was in Japan, I had always wanted to paint Oil because I have believed that Oil was the basic of the Paintings.

What I have loved in Oil is, in its slow dry process, Oil gives me plenty of time to communicate with my canvas. It gives me time to think as much as I need.
I feel Oil is very flexible medium.

Also, unlike acrylics, which turns plastic as soon as they dry, each color layers of Oil change their face in the process to dry. Depend on how you produce and how you maintain, they get delicate influence from there. Getting ages, they can be more beautiful or they can get cracked. It makes me feel as if they were alive and they were holding the breaths of Artists between their color layers.

Life as an Artist is something of a struggle between the faith to our real Artistic calling and the need to create the money to pay the next month rent.
Different from the commercial Artists which I used to be, the market changed to the individual people, and the rewards are 5 to 10 times lower, since the money come from people’s pocket, not the big companies’ business budgets.
However, here, I can eventually work for my own creation.

Good or bad, now I have plenty of time to face to my own inspirations without worrying about next morning deadlines.

After getting this life, I would never want to get back to the life where I had to create the Artworks like a machine, only for clients’ needs.
I got realized that to modify my Art to suit the market is no longer my original creation. It makes me one of a crafts people, but not an Artist.
But here, what I paint… They are my own creations. I could live forever in my Artworks.

Well, this is my story.
I hope there were something you feel connection with.

As you are, I am also a survivor who has still been struggling on the pass to keep working toward my dream and future.
But how hard to get by the life for now, I believe that my life is the one of the most blessed lives in the world. It is because I have found what I am meant to do on this Earth and what I want to do from now on.
As long as I am an Artist, I can never fail my life.

Whatever your dreams are, as long as you keep working toward them, you can not fail until you give up. There would be a lot of traps waiting for you in the way, which give you disappointments and doubts. But as long as you keep going, all of them would tune just the paths of the process to reach your dream eventually.

There is no storm which dose not get over. After the storm gone, fine day comes again.

Time is always going. You have tomorrow and you have the day in next year.
Even when you get something to get stuck in, as long as you keep going, time will solve your problem.

Once I had lost everything and restarted my life with nothing in far away strange country totally alone, being a beginner single mom in the bargain.
10 years after, here I am.
Every each years, I feel my life has been getting better and better.

I can do it,
then why can’t you?

You can do it.

Finally, I want to share my most favorite word with you.

"Today is the first day of the rest of your life"

Thank you for listening.

I have painted this blue sky painting for the back image of my coming Panda book looking the sky of San Francisco from my window.

Here is how I painted this sky.
Click the images to see larger images.

1. paint sky base	2. draw out lines of the clouds with the shadow color	3. add white
4. blending	with soft fine brush	after blending
5. add high light	6. blend again	finish!

"Okin the Panda Bear Finds his Family"
is coming with this blue sky painting in the beginning
of October 2011! Please stay tuned~*

I am a cat,
brought from far, far away.
Since I was thrown into this city, I have survived here alone.
　
Getting through the many cold/miserable nights in the dark corners of the streets,
I have yearned for the warmth of the lights coming through windows of the sweet family house.
　
Somebody want to invite me in?
　
I know the tricks of the sweets in your pocket.
You must not forget that even a tiny kitten has pride and hidden sharp claws.
　
Please seek me out.
　

You could see me taking a nap on a high branch in a maple tree on a fine day, or in the window of an old book store on a rainy day.

Whatever you could take from love in this world, I can give you a sweet heaven, If you can give me the lap to curl up on …
　
-So I can purr like a little kitten forever.

"Me and my head high and my tears dry
Get on without my guy
You went back to what you knew so far removed
from all that we went through
And I tread a troubled track, my odds are stacked
I’ll go back to black… "

Emy Winehouse has gone only after one month of this stage.
July 23rd 2011, God has took this fragile gift back from this world holding her broken wings.

How come nobody took her off from this puppet show? Her spirit was not there anymore, but being chained on the stage like a clown at the circus, only the hollow smiles were covering her screams which was being hidden in the deep bottom of her soul.
Watching her last stage makes me get overwhelmed to tears, feeling the same conflicts that I am holding in myself, … the conflict which most artists may have to face for our over keen inspirations living this life.

I’ve been always wondering…
People say "I love Artists"…
But what they really know about Artists?
They’ve ever thought about sharing this real madness with us which could actually be the source of the inspirations for our creations which are appreciated by them?
Time to time, I feel myself like a tiger or something in a zoo that should be isolated from the world. People love to see what Artists create, but it is the different story if they really like to invite what is behind on the Art into their actual lives.

To survive in a social life, holding those extreme emotional bombs inside of the soul, Artists must lean how to hide the screams under peaceful smiles. In between those hypocrisy and faith in own emotional demands, something starts eating the balance of our mind…
Winehouse was one of the purest soul of Artist’s who denied those hypocrisy. She chose burning herself up following to the naked revelation in her spirit.

This song "I Heard Love Is Blind" brought me some kind of shocks.

‘How can I put it so you understand?
I didn’t let him hold my hand.
But he looked like you; I guess he looked like you …
No he wasn’t you.
But you can still trust me, this ain’t infidelity.
It’s not cheating; you were on my mind…’

At first, I laughed with this incoherent logic in her, but then, I found myself feeling jealousy toward her exposing such a pure voice so boldly. It made me wondered if I ever could paint such a real voice in me out on my canvas so honestly…

I am very sorry that she had to leave this life so quick.
But you know what the privilege of Artists is?
We Artists live forever in this world beyond the time as long as our creations keep living in people’s hearts.

Winehouse will never die in our hearts…

PS-
Winehouse said "Love is a Losing Game"
Yes, I can not deny it now, just getting through there.
(If you are not on my Facebook fan page, check my previous blog "Hannya and Love")

But I want to paint more sweet side of love.. someday again…

I believe that this "Hannya" is one of my best works I’ve ever created.

The Hannya mask is a mask representing a female serpent-damon filled with malicious jealousy and hatred, worn by women betrayed or spurned by their lovers who turn into serpent demons.

The story of Hannya may not be acknowledged so widely unless you are well informed about Japanese traditional theater, Noh. Even I myself did not know about the details of the meanings which this famous mask contained until I made some research about Noh masks for other works of mine, "Boukyo-Nostalgia".

In Genji story, which is widely acknowledged as the world’s first novel, written by a court lady in Heian Japan (795-1192 AD). Genji, a man of passionate impulses and a lover of beauty, the favorite son of the Emperor, though his position at court is not entirely stable. "Aoi no Ue" is the Genji’s first principal wife, married to him when he is 12 and she is four years older. Not surprisingly, she finds him childish, and their relations remain uncomfortable until her death. her death was brought by an evil spirit of Lady Rokujo who is the Widow of the crown prince Prince Zembo and a longtime mistress of Genji.

I was inspired with so strong woman’s emotion and love that Lady Rokujo held in her as to change her into evil spirit to attack her rival, which is represented by "Hannya mask" in Noh performance. I wanted to express the naked nature of women that is held in our depth.

Love is always a double-edged sword…

In the past couple of months, my life had been totally screwed up by the explosion of this bomb. I had got through ardent passion with a man and lost it so quick and sudden.

He was gorgeous.
I am usually extremely picky. I have been always wanting to protect a peaceful life of my little wild and also wanting to have my time for concentrating on my Art instead of dealing with confusions by inviting new people in my life so easily. So in those romance department, I had kept my single life for years after I put the end on my last love with my ex-boy who is still now very close each others like the family.
My life was calm and well-controlled.

But, those peaceful life had suddenly changed by his eyes.

The first date with him was fun and friendly. I was not expecting any more things at all. He was a gentleman from the beginning to end of the evening. We kept smiling until his deep blue eyes showed the shadow of an abandoned little baby dog, saying good bye at my apartment door in the end of our date. In that moment, my life had fallen into a deep hole of an aphrodisiac. He had suddenly jumped into my life from there very naturally.

After the evening, I felt like I got on a roller coaster. Everything was fun spending the time with him. Picnic in the beach, fire works, sports game watching, boating on lake… and we gave every spare moment to exchanging our passions.
I was even feeling the special Charisma in him. He was like a walking Wikipedia and always tried making me laugh with the jokes out of his amazing knowledge. I became totally crazy about him in such a short time.

But as time goes by, in such rapid developments of passions, fine cracks had started forming inside of me. My emotion was getting hard time to keep up with grasping what was going on there.
In spite of my agitation, his responses were always patient in polite smile which made me more nervous. He did not show his emotions so much and I could not see what was on his under water at all. I mean. He was always passionate, but I could not tell if he was passionate because of me or just for his own fantasy of love. It got me scared to get involved in there more and more.

I eventually told him that I got scared. He said that he understood. Then we just put the end on our dating. It was so sudden and hollow after sharing such deep passions and fun time together. I really did not understand what we were and what the time we shared was after all…

The myth of "Gemini" was so true.

Anyway, getting through crazy depressions for some weeks after the good-bye, I think I’ve grown a little bit now.

As an artist, I realized that if I started any relation with a man next time, I’d better be with someone who really takes interest in my Art including what are making my Art. Even my strong emotions are the part of my Art. Unless my partner has the interest in being with and supporting those Artist’s inner world, my life would be torn into pieces after all.

I have recalled one scene of an old movie, "Seven years in Tibet".
Brad Pitt and his friend fell in love with a lady at the same time. The two men made opposite approaches toward her. Brad showed off his gorgeous skills and talents as a famous mountaineer, but the other man was just staying close to her helping and supporting her activities. And the one who won her heart at the last was the later one.

"Mr. Gemini" was totally the type of Brad Pitt. While I was with him, getting overwhelmed by his charismatic powers, what I was always feeling was how he was gorgeous, how he was smart, how he was…… then I had stopped and realized, "how about me?"
As long as I had stayed with him, I would have been taking the part of his shadow feeling it would be my happiness to be able to support such a great man, and my Art would have been buried.

On the other hand, my ex-boy whom I wrote about a little before was an Art collector. Artists were his life inspirations and he loved supporting Artists. I have been with him for more than 8 years now, the first couple of years were as lovers and even after we put the end on our relations as lovers, we are still exchanging close cares like family members and without his support, my Art would not have made in this San Francisco.

It was a good lesson for me to learn that passion and love were different. I was really attracted to Mr. Gemini, but now I can see that it was a totally different feeling from those stable bond that I share with my ex-boy.

Well, storm has passed. All are past now.

Those some weeks were really tough time for me, but as getting age, I have learned how to ‘forget’. I mean, ‘forget’ would not be the right word… maybe could I say ‘ how to sort things out if they are meant to my life or not’?
I do not belong to any religions. As a Japanese, I live following to Buddhism theories, but it is not my religion. But I do believe in the power above me which is leading me in my life, and I believe everything happens for reasons.

I have learned that what dose not work out is what is not meant for my life from the first place. So I do not try to force to bring them to anywhere in vain any more.
You know, this is not any negative action, but I believe this is the strength to ‘accept’ everything as what they are supposed to be.

OK, so now, look at the bright side as American always says* -P*

After all, all those emotionally tough time brought me the fruits of new inspirations.
I have realized that the more I drive myself into the depth of my inside, the more things come up to my visions, visibly or invisibly…. I even do not know if I am seeing them with my eyes or with my mind. I just need to copy them on my canvases. But this mental process is always overwhelming. I often have hard time to deal with my emotions on this state. You could call this ‘depression’ on surface? but actually, in my underwater, so many ‘rebirth’ and ‘reform’ are being made in my thoughts, inspirations, philosophies, etc,. I believe this struggles make my art real. All my art comes from my emotions and my canvases take them to share them with the world. The more I paint, the calmer I become. I am lucky that I am an Artist because whatever happened, wherever I wander off, when I draw, when I paint, I can get my life back.

I found these words in the comment which my friend Eric gave me on my Art before. The Artwork he is mentioning is ‘Hannya".

"The first time I saw your work, I was walking down Valencia street, and I was thunderstruck by one of your paintings. I had to come in off the street to stare at it. It was the portrait of the sexy nude woman with the "evil brain" as I called it, at first. I couldn’t handle the complexity of what you were revealing.
The many layers of a woman’s desires, fears, anger and lust. Can I admit to feeling what I am feeling when I am, looking at the painting? Not in public! In order to own that passion, I would have to externalize it, place my fantasies on someone else, as if they could be real. Otherwise I would feel deep embarrassment that I was capable of lust and fear, if others were to see what turns me on, like an advertisement of my unmet desires.

Art with such a powerful message doesn’t go down easy. For you to reveal that, you have to be a real person, not just the absent artist. You need to attach your image to your art, stamp yourself on it the same way Warhol or Basquiat attached their images (as honestly as they could manage) to their work, sort of accompanied their art even if they weren’t present when the buyer took the painting home. When I look at a Basquiat painting, in the back of my mind I am also seeing HIM, his face, his story, his sexuality, politics. It’s all there together. No mystery about the source of the art. I know his history, and that enriches the art for me, I would want to own one of his paintings because of the complex story and fascinating character behind the art. This is the way your art should be marketed, with you as the fascinating creator. A documentary about you would be fascinating." - Read more

Now I feel that I eventually got know where my Art is heading to….

Writer: Maria B. Villa
Original URL : http://mariabyoga.blogspot.com/

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Interview with Hiroko Sakai

This artist´s vision gives us account of how many possibilities we have as human beings to transform our lives consciously so that we can liberate ourselves from the obstacles we experience on a daily basis. Hiroko Sakai opens her heart and soul in this interview to share her inner battles by which she has evolved as an artist. The deepness and honesty of her words, as well as her paintings, are subjects of great worship.

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MB: Where were you born?

HS: I was born in a small town of northern Kyushu island of Japan.

MB: When did you start painting?

HS: It seems to me like I´ve been painting and drawing since my first breath. My school notebooks were filled with drawings.

MB: What are your major influences?

HS: My parents, they were great patrons of cultures and art in Japan, that´s why I had so many opportunities to grow artistically.

MB: What relationship can you establish between your paintings and peace of mind, body, and spirit?

HS: After having to go through many difficult experiences and after I started painting again, I became quieter and introverted but at the same time I started to reach deeper into my inner being. I am convinced that painting can make the spirit calmer, at least that´s what happens to me; the more I paint the calmer my spirit feels. I think that´s represented in my paintings.

MB: Can you tell us about an important personal experience that has marked your life and that it´s also reflected in your art?

HS: Yes, It all started several years ago when one day I suddenly got a heavy pain on my back, so I had to be taken to the hospital. The doctor said that a tumor, which size as a fist, was growing in my pelvis where the ovaries are located and that it was really difficult to check its position, he could not tell if it was benign or malignant until the surgery. If it was malignant, he said, I might not have any chance to live and even in the best case scenario I would lose my womb.

The hospital room where I was staying at was the room for cancer patients. Some ladies had already gone through surgery and some of them were waiting for their wombs to be taken out. Others were wearing scarves on their heads to hide their hair loss. That was all very shocking to me therefore I was losing all the hope left in my life. But on the other hand, I was fortunate enough to take some time to pause and look at my life, and realized that I had kept myself running all the time. It gave me some time to think deeply about my life and to see where I was standing and doing with it.

Fortunately, my tumor was benign. Thanks to GOD, I am still here to meet you today. Anyway, getting through this experience has made my artwork deep and focused; now I have time to think about my life again, which used to be so hectic. It was truly a gift from God that I could change my life for the better.

MB: Describe your process of healing through art. Do you think that painting can provide you with good health?

HS: Yes, I really agree so. First, after a long blank, I started drawing which helped me to sweep out all the emotions stuck in my soul. There were no colors during that difficult time. Then red came back… and blue came next. One by one, colors slowly came back on my canvas. Looking at that pattern I should say that this was my art healing process.

I had not thought about such things so intensely before but as I got through them I could see that Art has some power to heal and balance our mental state.

The creation process can bring up good and healthy feelings of achievement. Also, expressing our own originality into actual visible figures can reassure our own existence. It is like communicating with the outside world using what I have deep inside naturally.

When I got back all the colors in my drawings, I decided to start with oil painting. To be honest, I had never touched oils until then.Oil dries very slowly and in my previous job with commercial art in Japan I couldn´t use it because I was always pressed with heavy deadlines. But as an artist I´ve always wanted to paint with oil because I’ve always believed that oil is the basis of painting. And it is precisely the slow dry process of oil that attracts me the most as it gives me plenty of time to communicate with my canvas. It gives me time to think as much as I need.

MB: Is life and death a recurrent theme in your works?

HS: Life and death can be one of the themes in my paintings. But basically, that is not the only theme of my art. My inspiration is my own life, what I see, feel, read, and think…. every day. So many themes can be brought up as I am living and feeling every minute.

But in a sense, you might be right. I think about life and death a lot in my life, it might be because I am Japanese and was raised into the philosophy of Buddhism. In Japan, most of the people do not practice Buddhism as a religion anymore (I think), but still Buddhism has a big influence on Japanese people and teaches them to learn how to live, appreciation and humbleness, and harmony towards other people. One of my biggest influence is how Japanese think about life and death. It’s really hard to explain it in English, but Japanese have the belief of "Rinne Tensho", which means life repeats. The body is just a carriage of your spirit in this life, the spirit lives forever and from time to time. Our spirits are sent to this world to learn and get trained, and afterwards it goes back to heaven again, death is just the expiration of the physical body.
I keep that as a constant reminder, in a sense birth is the start and death is also the start of life. I’m so much interested in this process of life and death, and I’m also very curious of what would happen next, when my body expires.

MB: In your webpage you talk about how hard it was for you to move to North America, about being in exile. Can you elaborate a little bit more about that? And in what way is that represented in your artwork?

HS: What brought me to San Francisco was my marriage 11 years ago, after that I became a single mother and a struggling artist. I got married to an American man (half Japanese) who gave me extremely warm support and encouragement when I was hospitalized. After getting married, he went back to the US because he had to arrange his American life so he could move to Japan to live with me. But he did not come back for months. During that time, I found out I was pregnant and to make a long story short, it was me who had to move to the US. My new life in a far away country had started with a big belly, a difficult language, and domestic violence. I found help at an Asian Woman’s shelter in San Francisco.

I had lost everything, my studio, my career, I had spent all my savings on moving expenses and compensation for my staff (months of salaries and equipment lease…). Anyway, now I believe that it was worth the lesson.Before I came to America, I was such a naive and silly girl. Then I got a chance to survive in San Francisco for almost 10 years. I am pretty happy with the strength that I´ve developed over the years as I learned to get over the hell I was living. To keep custody of my daughter, I couldn´t leave California until she became 18. But I finally got my life back, I’m quite satisfied of what I have done and what I am working on, and also my future possibilities here. I believe that now I’m headed in the right direction toward my success.
Those experiences lead me to obtain the “strength" and "independence" evident in my art. As you are one, I am also a survivor who is still struggling on the pass to keep working towards my dreams and future. I believe that my life is one of the most blessed lives in the world because I have found what I am meant to do on this Earth and what I want to do from now on. As long as I am an Artist, I can never fail my life.

Whatever your dreams are, as long as you keep working towards them, you cannot fail. There might be a lot of traps waiting for you in the way, which would disappoint you and generate doubts but as long as you keep going, all of them would tune up to reach your goals eventually. There is no storm which does not get over. After the storm is gone, a beautiful day will come again.

San Francisco, with its vibrant arts and culture, became my second home and was a source of much inspiration. For a while, I felt disadvantaged because I was a foreigner learning a second language. Now I know that my differences are also my strengths and I can combine my Japanese and American background to produce a powerful and unique art work.

MB: What are some of the most important philosophical concerns for you as an artist?

HS: My philosophical concerns as an artist…. hum. I have never thought about those kinds of things. It is so natural for me to live as an artist, so when I paint I do not think so much about complicated things… I just let out what I have inside and spread it on my canvas. If there is something you feel from my art that would be my philosophy.

MB: Does your work fill your needs as an artist but also the needs of our time and the contemporary art scene?

HS: Honestly, I do not know the answer for this question yet. I just started my new career in San Francisco as an oil painter only 5 years ago, I changed my career from a commercial artist in Japan, so I need much more time to find out where my art is going to. Actually, I’m at the beginning of changing my art marketing views, until now I had worked on my art marketing in a very traditional way, just repeating gallery submissions. I realized that in this huge competition of artists, it´s like throwing stones in the ocean. Especially because the galleries like art that sells, the kind of art which would go well at rich people house walls, sorry I am a bit mean, ha ha. But I consider that my art is not part of a wall paper. Have you watched the movie “Tea with Mussolini’? I do not remember it exactly, but I think in the movie, there was a scene where the heroine is talking with paintings in a room specially made for them, she was owning paintings like her inspiring books, soul mates to talk to….I want my art to be adopted by that kind of people, by those who are sensible to it, not the people who are just looking for expensive wall decorations.

A great friend named Eric, who´s also an artist, once told me: My father used to say: "know your market and talk to them directly¨. You can ignore the galleries that are scared of your stuff, their reaction is understandable. They are selling pictures that are supposed to fade away behind the beige sofa into oblivion, and match the wall color. They select art to help buyers disguise the anguish they feel, the longing, the emptiness, not to reveal it and display it. You are a bomb waiting to explode. But instead of killing people, your bomb will liberate them. Your art will free them from their shame, their guilt, their fear of discovery. You have to find the people who want to use your art for personal liberation, or to shock people so that they stop and stare. Forget the decorators looking for beige. You shock people in San Francisco! Where people come from all over the world to get laid! People flock here for sexual freedom, which is what you offer them in an instant of recognition. People looking at your art either stand transfixed or run away as fast as they can. You will have no market in between unless you change your style.

Thank you, Maria!

PS-
If you are interested in "Hiroko’s Path", you can learn more here.
” A life path why I’ve ended up to be in San Francisco “