Miller Family Free Day: Poetic Imagination In Japanese Art

The Museum celebrates a community free day as part of its Japanese Poetry, Art, & Culture Weekend Series. Spend some time going deeper into some of the themes, materials, and creative processes represented in Poetic Imagination in Japanese Art. The day will feature a variety of calligraphy and ikebana demonstrations, music performances, poetry reading and writing opportunities, artmaking, and more.

• 11-4 p.m., Poetic Imagination exhibition galleries
  Self-Guided Poetry Writing with Write Around Portland
  Pick up a card that introduces Waka, Found, Acrostic, or Sensory poetry and try your hand and writing creative verses inspired by works of art in Poetic Imagination.

• 11-4 p.m., Hoffman lobby, 1st Floor, Main Building
  Tea Tastings with Jugetsudo Teas

• 11-4 p.m. Kinney Classroom, Lower Level, Main Building
  Calligraphy Art-Making
  Drop-in to try your own hand at calligraphy and learn more about how to use traditional tools of brush, ink, and paper.

• 11-Noon, Schnitzer Court, 1st Floor, Main Building
  Ikebana Demonstration with Ikebana Portland Chapter 47
  Learn more about ikebana, the traditional Japanese art of flower arranging.

• Noon-3 p.m., Stevens Room, Lower Level, Main Building
  Origami Art-Making with Yuki Origami
  Drop in to celebrate the fall season by making either a leaf, leaf notecard or toadstool origami

• Noon-1 p.m., meet in the Park Avenue lobby
  Drop-in Renga Poetry Workshop with creative-writing professor, Gillian Parrish
  In this 30 minute session participants will learn about the collaborative poetic form of traditional Japanese renga and will explore a fun and generative contemporary form that Parrish calls “renga essays,” dipping into some freewriting to kickstart your own.

• 1-2 p.m., Schnitzer Court, 1st Floor, Main Building
  Calligraphy Performance with Sora Shodo
  Sora Shodo is a Portland-based artist who will share her approach to Japanese calligraphy (“shodo”) that is at once traditional and also very contemporary. She will perform with musician Mitch Iimori.

• 2:30-3 p.m., Schnitzer Court, 1st Floor, Main Building
  Zen Calligraphy Demonstration with Kihachiro Nishiura
  Kihachiro Nishiura ask us to think of Japanese calligraphy for a moment as “inaudible music.” For him the dots, lines, shadings, movements, and spaces combine to compose a certain melody in our minds or an unheard music.  His approach to calligraphy draws on both traditional and innovative brushwork methods.

• 3 p.m., Meet in the Park Avenue lobby
  Docent Tour of Poetic Imagination

• 4-4:30 p.m., Schnitzer Courtyard, 1st Floor, Main Building
  Japanese Music Performances by Takohachi’s TakoQ with Yumi Torimaru and Kirin Kapin on Taugaru Shamisen and Shinobue (Bamboo flute).

Family programs are generously supported in part by Sharon L. Miller and Family, the Gordon D. Sondland and Katherine J. Durant Foundation, the Lamb Baldwin Foundation, and the Joseph E. Weston Public Foundation.