Apprentice of the Brush

With a new crop of horizon-expanding enrichment classes launching this month, one Member explains her years-long journey in a traditional pursuit.

Emily Okada motions to a framed painting that seems plucked from the walls of a Ginza gallery. The crisp lines of the kimono-clad geisha reaching for the delicate petals of a cherry blossom could easily pass as the adept work of a professional.

“I started it when I was pregnant and then I had the baby and took a few months off,” Okada admits with a laugh. “And then the class shut for Covid. So, all in all, I think [this painting] took me almost two years.”

Okada doesn’t claim to be any manner of Picasso. But after years of attending Connections’ long-running sumi-e ink painting course, the traditional works she has created can’t help but undercut her humility.

“When you see the image that you want to recreate, of course it looks difficult,” Okada says. “But the teachers are so patient and when you finish, it’s, like, ‘I can’t believe I just painted this.’”

Just one of several dozen enrichment classes, tours and workshops on everything from modern architecture to European and East Asian cuisine (registration for the fall semester opens from September 1), the perennially popular sumi-e course has introduced countless Members like Okada to this art form that has its origins in ancient China.

Of course, the Club’s master sumi-e instructors don’t simply throw novice painters in at the deep end. Like her accomplished mother before her, current family scion Suiko Ohta starts sumi-e newcomers on monochrome pieces comprised of simple brushstrokes.

“The way you grind the charcoal to make ink and all the natural, organic colors, and how you paint on silk instead of canvas,” recalls Okada of those introductory sessions. “It’s such a traditional type of painting that’s really particular to Japan and a couple of other cultures around this area.”

Ohta then moves students onto more complicated renderings of plants and wildlife to develop their technical skills and creative sensibilities. When the time is right, Ohta might direct her students’ attention to a book of photographs of Eihei Temple in rural Yamagata Prefecture.

“There are hundreds of hand-painted ceiling panels in the temple, and the book has a picture of each one,” Okada explains. “We pick four, and that’s when we first start with color.”

All that groundwork to graduate to a full palette might seem like overkill to some. But Okada and the hundreds of former sumi-e students wouldn’t have it any other way.

“Once you know exactly how you hold your brush and how much pressure you put onto the silk, it becomes your individual technique,” she says. “It makes each work and each artist really unique.”

Words: Owen Ziegler
Top image of Emily Okada: Kayo Yamawaki

Fall Enrichment Program Registration
From September 1 | 10am

Connections Welcome Desk
September 1 | 10am–7pm | Family Lobby (1F)