The President of NZU – Blogs

It rained again. I am tired of this weather.

At 11 AM, I went to the Doho Gakuen in Nagoya to attend a ceremony to give appointment letter to the president of the Nagoya College of Music.

The associate professor, Mr. Hajime Takahashi will assume his position as a new president of the Nagoya College of Music. He studied politics at university. He is only 46 years old and would attract of attention from inside and outside the Doho Group of Educational Institutions. Everyone expect much of this young president. Please see his blog and twitter from here.

http://d.hatena.ne.jp/hajime_t/

http://twitter.com/TakahashiHajime

At 1 PM, I had a meeting with Mr. Yoshitaka Kinose about a poster competition called “the first Poster Gran Prix.” I will act as a chairman of the awards committee at the competition.

Mr. Kinose is a president of Kinose Printing Co., Ltd., and also the vice president of the Aichi Printing Industry Association. Mr. Kinose and I have known each other for long time. Some of our graduates also work for his company. The company is enjoying considerable success. They also expanded into Dalian, China. Our university have established educational and academic partnership with Dalian Nationalities University. So we had a great conversation about Dalian.

Mimosa flowers was blooming in front of the A building. Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama presented bouquets of flowers of Mimosa to ten female reporters on the International Woman’s day. Italian men also have the custom of giving the Mimosa flower to women in March.

It was fine weather for the first time in a couple of days. I had a meeting with Mr. Takaaki Wada. Mr. Wada will teach craft history at our university as a part-time professor from April. Mr. Wada is a product designer of the INAX. We expect him to draw his background in his lecture.

Camellias are in full bloom by the window of the president office. The faint pink color flowers are elegant. When I opened the window, the wonderful smell of the flowers filled the president’s office. I enjoyed a great conversation about Camellia with Professor Makoto Shinagawa and Professor Norihisa Okada. Those professors also love flowers.

It rained all day today. I spent all day producing the creations for my solo exhibition.

My balcony seemed to get ready for spring. For example, Nasturtium leaves are growing. Even though the planter had been filled with weeds since autumn (because I didn’t pull them out.), the weeds died and new leaves of Nasturtium have come up. I like the shape of the Nasturtium leaves.

Nasturtium leaves, buds and flowers are edible. I have never eaten them, though. If you want to see the flowers, please see my blog of April 19th, 2009.

At 9 AM, I left the hotel in Shiodome, Tokyo. I took a walk around Ginza and had a breakfast at the cafe “LE CAFE DOUTOR”, reading a book. Ginza was still quiet in Saturday morning.

Then I went to see the exhibition “AN10 Mot annual 2010‘Neo-Ornamentalism from Japanese Contemporary Art’” at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo. The exhibition showcased marvelous handworks of ornaments. Those excellent works blew my mind and made me rethink about ornament.

I also visited another special exhibition in the museum,“Cyber Arts Japan – Arts Electronica 30 Years for Art and Media Technology.” Many of the creations by well-known artists including Meiwa Denki and Youichiro Kawaguchi and new artists was featured in this exhibition. There were variety of different works (I don’t know if we can call them “works”) and confused me a bit.

I visited the permanent exhibition at the museum, but it was less interesting than the above two special exhibitions. Please see their website as well.

http://www.mot-art-museum.jp/

When I was walking around the lobby at the museum, I ran into our guest professor, Mr. Nobuya Hitsuda. Museum is a kind of meeting place.

I took the 1:10 PM Shinkansen to come back to Nagoya.

Many photographers and people were trying to take a photo of the cherry blossoms in Toneri Machi, Higashi ward, Nagoya. Journalists of the news papers the Asahi Shinbun and the Yomiuri Shinbunm and the Tokai Television Broadcasting also visited there for coverage.

After working for my solo exhibition, I left for Tokyo by Shinkansen.

In the evening, I went to the Creation Gallery G8 to see Katsumi Asaba’s exhibition “Design Revolution.”

This exhibition was held to commemorate his winning the Yusaku Kamekura Design Award. The Misawa Design 2009 Bauhaus Collection posters by Katsumi Asaba received the award and those posters were featured in the exhibition. For further information on the exhibition, please visit here.

http://rcc.recruit.co.jp/g8/index.html

At 5:30 PM, I visited the Ginza Graphic Gallery to see the exhibition“Shigeo Fukuda’s Visual Jamping.”

Mr. Shigeo Fukuda was an international graphic designer and also our guest professor. Unfortunately, he passed away about a year ago. The exhibition introduced 108 works gleaned from the near 1,200 posters which Mr. Fukuda created during his lifetime. I found a poster for his solo exhibition held in my gallery, the Space Prism. The poster brought tears to my eyes. Please visit the gallery’s website, too.

http://www.dnp.co.jp/gallery/ggg/index.html

At 7 PM, I went to the Konica Minolta Plaza in Shinjuku, to attend the party of the Eco & Art Award 2010. The party aimed to exchange between judges of the competition and nominated artists.

I gave a speech at the party, saying “Judgment was really difficult. It was as hard as creating design. At the same time, it was fun to see the works. I believe that interests in the environment and sensitivity as a designer create high-level works.”

The Shinjuku Takano Building where the Konica Minolta Plaza is located has fruit shop on the first floor. So, delicious fruits were displayed on the table at the party. For further information on the Eco & Art Award 2010, please visit here.

http://konicaminolta.jp/plaza/eco-art-award_2010/examiner.html

The KONICA MINOLTA Eco & Art Award 2010 exhibition will start from tomorrow at the Konica Minolta Plaza. KIKI’s photo exhibition “Sense of Wonder” will be also held at the Konica Minolta Plaza from tomorrow. KIKI is an actress and model as well as artist. She studied architecture at Musashino Art University.

Many students attended the party, so no alcoholic drink were served. After the party, Mr. Haruhiko Asai, one of judge of the competition, and I went to a Japanese Izakaya restaurant to have a drink and Yakitori (Skewered chicken). Mr. Asai is a product designer and also professor of Meisei University. I met him for the first time, but we got along smoothly. We had a great conversation about design, designer, professor’s job, and university’s future.

I went to the Chubu-Nippon Broadcasting Co., Ltd. (CBC) in Nagoya at 10 AM. Statue of the Ultraman welcomed me at the entrance. It seemed to be about 5 meters high. I wanted him to be higher, I took a photo from a low camera angle.

I had a meeting with the CBC Creation about Seki city’s advertising character.

After the meeting, I went to the university to attend another meeting. Then I did my work at the president office until 4 PM.

It was raining today. Buds of peach trees looked as if they were smiling and saying, “We will start to bloom soon.”

At 5 PM, I had a meeting with a printing company.

I attended regular meeting of the Nenge haiku club in the evening at the restaurant called “stage Aun” in Nagoya. The restaurant was decorated with Cherry blossoms and also beautiful Hina dolls were displayed. Please visit their website here.

http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~stageaun/index.html

The weather has been “Fine, little rain later” for three days. The weather is unpredictable now. Is it because of spring?

I spent all day addressing invitation cards. I stick to writing the addresses by hand, even though it takes time.

At 2 PM, I took a walk for a change. After 15-minute walk, I arrived at the Tokugawa museum. I visited the special exhibition  “The Doll Festival of the Owari Tokugawa Family.” I was not charged an admission fee because Nagoya Zokei University of Art and Design is a partnership member of the museum. Of course, our students are given the privilege of free admission to the museum.

An array of impressive Hina dolls and items were exhibited at the gallery. They were all gorgeous and elegance. For further information, please visit their website.

http://www.tokugawa-art-museum.jp/

After seeing the exhibition, I bought Japanese sweets made of wheat gluten bread. Since today is the day of the Japanese Doll Festival, I wanted to have special sweets for the Dolls Festival. Does this photo of the sweets look like the Hina dolls?

I spent all day getting ready for my solo exhibition in March. I addressed invitation cards to many people. It took a lot of time. Now the Internet allows us to find information easily. Meanwhile, it has been really difficult to gain personal information, since Japanese Government had implemented the Act on the Protection of Personal Information. Mailing list is valuable information.

The theme of my exhibition is “Kakon.” It means that I leave trace on board, paper, and hearts.

I took a walk at 11 AM. Small cherry blossom trees were already in full bloom at a small park which is right next to Aichi Commercial High School. That cherry blossom tree is called “Kawazu Zakura” and begins to bloom in the end of January.

The flowers are pink or rose-pink. It stays in bloom for a month. Anyway, spring has come!

It is already March. How quickly time flies by? I wore a badge of a running man, which is designed by Keith Haring,to remind me of the importance of time.

We had a monthly morning assembly at 8:55 AM. In my speech, I said,“It is important to make right judgement and right decision in your work. A? B? Or C? However, it is also important to rethink about the option which you did not choose.“

While I was doing my work at the president office, I suddenly remembered the Japanese red-crown crane. Then I went to the rice field which is right next to the campus.

Finally, I could find the crane. Actually I missed the crane five times so far. I was really glad to see it today. It was pecking at food. So beautiful. There were more than 30 people in the rice field to see the crane.

I typed that I was excited at the crane on my twitter.Soon, Professor Ryosuke Kobayashi came to the rice field with camera and a tripod. He said,“Thanks to your twitter, I will finally be able to take a photo of the crane today.” Unfortunately I didn’t bring a camera like Professor Kobayashi’s one, so I took the photo with my mobile. It was too small to see well. If you want to see a better photo,please see my blog of February 25th, 2010.

After lunch, I took a walk in the campus. Weeping plum trees started to bloom in our garden.

After I finished my work at 7 PM, I left the campus. The spring rain was falling gently.

I did research about Japanese university president’s blog in the Internet. Of course, my blog is the highest ranked result in the search engine. I already updated my blog more than 1400 times. I think my blog will be the most frequently updated one as long as I am a president of Nagoya Zokei University of Art and Design. I also found an interesting website.

http://university.main.jp/blog5/archives/2008/02/post_1062.html

It is the list of the Japanese university presidents’ blog. I was surprised that there are only 13 university presidents are writing their blog. I wonder why other university presidents don’t write a blog? I personally think writing blog is the best way to present their educational vision. Besides, it is the cheapest way to advertise the university.

Rain stopped around 11 AM and I went to the Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art to see the graduation exhibition of Aichi Prefectural University of Fine Arts and Music. At the exhibition, I met my friend, Mr. Akira Shiraki, a professor of the university. Mr. Shiraki said,“I think, so many students of your university and our university treated fun theme. It is not bad, but I hope that more students would challenge academic theme.”

I also visited the graduation exhibition of Aichi Prefectural Seto Yogyo Senior High School which was held at the J gallery in the museum. Even though only 13 students exhibited their works, the works proved that students acquired high levels of skills at the school.

On the way back from the museum, I found that cherry blossoms already started blooming in Higashi ward, Nagoya. It is still February, but the cherry blossoms bloom earlier than other ones each year. I enjoyed the coming of spring earliest in Nagoya city.