Art and beauty from Japan

After a week that has been filled with friendship and exchanges with our Japanese Sister City colleagues, I realised that I had barely had time to share any of the images from our trip to Japan. So much has happened since our return!

So I think there is one more Japan post before I am finished - stationery - but for today these are some of the images of art and beauty that I carry with me after our visit.

Some temple images...incense sticks smouldering in fine white sand, and Buddha's hands.

Some more images from the exhibition by Shohei Fujita. Simply divine work.

We came across a graphic design exhibition; here they were trying to link paper texture to butterfly wings.

And a detail from a wall inside a shopping centre.

A beautiful hand-hammered vase by one of Haryu-sensai's students.

Assemblage art at the Gunma gallery.

And as a complete contrast to such elegance and beauty here is how I spent part of Saturday - helping Barry and my dad build a wall for a  cob oven at the Maleny Neighbourhood Centre; before helping Christine and Merv take down the exhibition we hung earlier in the week! Quite the contrast... and of course we had the first major thunderstorm in ages just as we were working.

Never a dull moment here.