Daily Drawings & Buson 100

On January 19, my good friend Joan passed away. She had terminal cancer and chose a medically assisted death. She had done a lot of hospice volunteer work, so she was well-prepared. On that day, I started a new daily drawing practice partly inspired by John F. Simon Jr.’s Drawing Meditation practice, and partly by a commission project Joan asked me to do several years ago, a visual art version of the Buson 100 (originally conceived for haiku). Yosa Buson was one of Japan’s greatest haiku poets; however, he was also a painter.

雪折れも聞えて暗き夜なる哉

yukiore mo
kikoete kuraki
yo naru kana

Sharp crack
of a snow-broken branch —
black night

While this is a daily drawing practice, I’m doing them in increments of 100 (1 drawing per day), in gratitude to Joan (and to Buson).

There’s no pressure on me to make something great. Good, bad, terrible, beautiful are all fine in this process. The point is to just draw (or paint, or collage) something everyday on a small piece of paper roughly 4.5 x 6 inches. I’ve got a lot of 9 x 12 in. heavy paper that I want to use up by folding and cutting it into quarters. The size may vary slightly.

Here are my first three drawings:

#meditation

From Tony Robles: “A Monk’s Invisible Footprints”

I’ve been keeping track of the Theravada monks’ “Peace Walk,” their journey by foot from Texas, through the Bible Belt, to DC. It has been a hard slog (and some of the monks are barefoot), but as they walk, the crowds that welcome them are getting larger and larger. Filipino American author Tony Robles lives in North Carolina, and has been watching, too. In “A Monk’s Invisible Footprints,” he contemplates the significance of his walk and theirs:

A Monk’s Invisible Footprints

Blogging Over Mass Social Media

I’ve been blogging regularly every since I created my first blog on Geocities around 2001. Later I switched to WordPress. Blogging brought me to a community of writers and artists, some of whom I have met in person, collaborated with on books, and remain friends with to this day.

I’ve also been on social media a lot, but when I think about it, I don’t think it’s done much to enrich my life. Two articles (see below) I’ve read recently make a strong case for ramping down on mass social media use.

I basically agree with Westenberg and Johnston. Yes, I have a newsletter on Substack, but I am minimizing my use of Notes. Being old helps in the sense that I am more aware, now, that my life on earth is limited, and don’t want to waste my time. Priorities, you know?

Anyway, I’m not going to go on about this at length because I’m not an expert. The stats are helpful, but I’m also going on my gut feeling that it’s time to let go of mass social media. Below are a couple of quotes, and if you are interested, you can check out the links yourself:

  1. From J.A. Westenberg’s “The Case for Blogging in the Ruins“:

I keep thinking about how many interesting folks have essentially stopped writing anything substantial because they’ve moved their entire intellectual presence to Twitter or Substack Notes. These are people who used to produce ten-thousand-word explorations of complex topics, and now they produce dozens of disconnected fragments per day, each one optimized for immediate engagement and none of them building toward anything coherent.

It’s like watching someone who used to compose symphonies decide to only produce ringtones. —J.A. Westenberg

2. From Bill Johnston’s “The Last Days of Mass Social Media“:

Facebook maintains 3.07 billion monthly active users, (CNBC) yet average page engagement sits at a dismal 0.06%. Instagram’s 2-3 billion users (Electro IQ) generate only 0.36-0.50% engagement—a 28% year-over-year decline. (Socialinsider) Twitter/X presents the starkest case: engagement rates have collapsed to 0.029% across industries (SocialSellinator), with users posting 38% less frequently than in 2023 (TECHSABADO) and daily active users falling from 250 million to 157 million under Musk’s ownership. Epic Owl

You can see the fallout in how people talk about social media now. Breaks are framed as recovery. Scrolling is described as a habit (doom scrolling), not a pleasure. Posting feels risky, while silence feels safer.

The open and authentic contributions aren’t slowing down because people are “disengaged”; it is because they are exhausted from being part of the social media machine. —Bill Johnston

Drawing Bee

Last night I attended the online social “Drawing Bee” on Zoom sponsored by artist John F. Simon, Jr., author of Drawing Your Own Path: 33 Practices at the Crossroads of Art and Meditation. I had purchased the book recently because I was interested in drawing meditation practices, and I intend to develop a a more regular, daily drawing practice.

We had a good session, with artists joining from far-flung areas of the globe. There was friendly chatting as we drew, and even a brief introduction to one artist’s two cats.

John’s prompt for the evening was “stream.” We are not required to follow the prompts, but I started out with it in mind, and that led me in various directions, which included asemics, as I explored the idea:

The “social” drawing bee happens only once a week. But there is also a daily, silent, hour-long drawing bee for drawing as meditation. More info and a description can be found HERE.

#meditation #asemics

My Third Lung

Check out my latest post “My Third Lung” in my newsletter. Also: Mom’s Letter/Zuihitsu; Eric & Martin Demaine, Joan Takayama-Ogawa, Henry Eiland, Persistent Bloom, & Ralph Pugay; Constantinople ensemble, & Reyben Kim plays nose flute. #music

“Drawing Your Own Path”: Art & Meditation

A few years back (before the Covid-19 pandemic began) I subscribed to receive daily drawings from John F. Simon, Jr. This was back when I was still feeling connected with the old days of blogging (more on that later). This was also before I knew that he had a book on drawing as meditation, called Drawing Your Own Path.

At some point, I moved on, and let go of the subscription. More recently, though, I learned about his book, and I also noted that his background in meditation had a connection to Buddhist Geeks (Vince Fakhoury Horn), a group I feel an affinity with. Maybe I will also check out Simon’s online Drawing Bee community drawing sessions.

Here is my first daily drawing, based on Simon’s first exercise from his book. It’s also my first drawing of 2026, which is already starting off as a challenging year–can you tell?:

I did this without any thinking or planning whatsoever, and I think it illustrates the irony I”m feeling about the New Year. I’m heading off to physical therapy now . . .

Changes

Here we are at Winter Solstice, and the season seems to be urging me to make some changes. Some of those changes will be happening her on this website. I’ll be going back to selling my art again (I took two years off) on this site. I will also be changing the pages setup, categorizing my work by type, rather than by year created. So please excuse the “mess” if things seem a little disorganized. This shouldn’t take too long.

Here are two asemic paintings that I’ve done recently:

Behind the Scenes

I’ve got a new post on Substack: Behind the scenes, there is research, organizing, scanning, and filing. Also: Catalina Africa, Steve Silver, Kathryn Vercillo, Kirk Gordon; Open Reel Ensemble, and Shimon Hoshino.

Image shows boxes of letters and old airmail envelopes.

Filipino Labor

Check out my article “Under Pressure” on Eulipion Outpost. Dad writes a May Day letter revealing his “disgust” at labor conditions on an MSTS ship in 1959. Also, Filipino labor strikes, history, art, and music. Links: Joe Livernois, Anthropic Settlement, Kazu Haga, Lynda Barry, Sam Wallman, Queen w/David Bowie, & Steffi Barthel. Eulipion Outpost focuses on intersections of history, culture, and art.

Small acrylic painting on wood

“Sploosh 2025.” I haven’t painted in acrylics for several years now. But I saw an old painting I had started long ago on a recycled panel I found at Good Will. I felt the previous version was “timid,” and decided to paint over it–just had fun with it.

Abstract painting in bright, primary colors with small rounded shapes interspersed with yellow stripes and a few squiggly black outlines. Very pop-arty.