"The Rice Sea"

Frottage
August 2006
ARCUS Project, Moriya, Ibaraki, JAPAN

In Moriya City Centre, where the ARCUS's artists share the building with the local people, there are Tatami Rooms with Tatami mats flooring.
There was one big Tatami Room just next to my studio. It was empty most of the time and the door always open. I loved to go in and sat there in the big room all alone, smell the very nice fume of the dry straw at night after the warm shiny day.

I felt like I was sitting in a field, a rice field.

The beautiful pattern of the Tatami left the imprint on my legs when I stood up and stayed a few minutes after I left the room.

One day I decide to go into the room with a lot of thin papers and few boxes of black soft pastel.
I rubbed the mat slowly and the idea of the rice field