Pat's Blog

To the East of Takamatsu about 30 minutes by bus, maybe a little more, is the small town named Aji. Right in the heart of Japanese medieval history’s great Dan-no-ura battle this is a town that has a strong ambience of things past, deep culture, granite rocks and the salty smell of the sea. Bracing indeed …


These days it's the home to a great many stone masons who’ve hauled rocks from the nearby mountains and the whole area looks like one big rock pile with cranes trucks and the sound of drills and chisels. In fact that’s about all there is and that’s praise not a slight, I love it because there are so many interesting exhibits in the stonemasons’ yards.





The sculptures are for sale and/or by commissions; they range from the pious to the less reverent, odd and at times downright witty. The Kitty Chan grave marker as one example along with ready-to-strike arm and hammer in the tradition of North Korean and other Marxist heroic sculpture. Tantalizing stuff for a bourgeoisie blogger with a sense of humor



Everywhere in Aji is the feeling that the sea is close by and of course that’s because it is. The sea and this ambience of history make this a great town to just stroll around in. Not many cars here and we can take in the Isamu Noguchi Studios (and what an visual adventure that is …) I already knew Noguchi was a brilliant artist from art history studies and probably at the top here, and can only marvel at his refined sense of aesthetic and self-discipline. The man was constantly working, evolving, switching media and was attracted to this area to sculpt and build such a magnificent studio compound. I’ll write two articles about Aji, this the first as a precursor to another that will look more closely at the work coming out of the town. Later I’ll try to deal with some of the individual craftsmen and artists there.











There is a sculpture walkway here and many signs in English.
I’ll be back in a couple of week, so please keep you comments, cards n’ letters coming in. Until then ….