Painting anymore??

Country Lane

1930's sloop

This is the first blog entry I have done since I set up this site quite a while ago.  I’ve thrown my energies into  “Lady Nyo’s Weblog”  (https://ladynyo.wordpress.com) because that site was all about my writing, publishing and some other issues of life.

So recently, a good friend (Bren) who knows me for many years, wrote and asked if I was still painting?  Well, after 25 years of such, I had turned my energies to writing and belly dancing, and only recently went back to watercolors.

Why not?  There is no “Chinese Wall” between disciplines and when you can and it pleases you (and others)….why not??

However, most of what I have attempted recently has been NOT birds….it’s landscapes and seascapes.

The jury is still out how long I will do so, but recently I have been enjoying the painting again.  There is one that I am working on but it is too sketchy of paint to put up here.

A few months ago, I was drinking a green tea mixture….a can…and the can had a geisha (or a courtesan) as decoration, and the full sugar can had a beautiful cherry tree in full blossom.  I decided to combine both cans (pretty good, actually!) and make a painting of that.  My son watched the geisha come into being and mentioned that  ‘she must be a courtesan because she tied the obi in front’.

LOL~!  The perils of homeschooling children.  What they pick up from their mothers!

But he was (mostly) right.  We both learned that only courtesans tied their obis in front….never geishas or ‘decent’ women.  Actually, I believe this is a myth.  It’s very hard to tie an obi yourself, so why not wear it in front??

This spring I will try to continue to paint.  Not much has come into excitement….exciting me enough to pick up brush and watercolor, but I am awaiting spring afterall….the tender buds, the delicate colors of the trees mounding one upon the other in the distance, all these various greens….

So we shall see what moves the heart and brush.

Jane Kohut-Bartels

“Maikos”

This I believe is in “A Seasoning of Lust” but I’ve been rewriting some of the poems anyway, so they are a bit different.

The apprentice period of Maikos is usually a long period of years as these very young girls grow up doing all the manual labor of the house. ( Actually, this varies depending upon location:  Kyoto has a different timetable for this than Tokyo.)   They are educated in music, dancing and conversation.  All this takes years to complete, and it’s really a dying art.

Lady Nyo

MAIKO
Dirty faced little girls
imitate Geishas
in the nighttime
when chores are done.
They practice
seductive glances
on each other,
graceful movements
pouring tea for phantom clients.
Stealing a moment,
they gaze into mirrors
making Geisha- faces
preening, casting
down their eyes,
yet trying to catch
their mirrored reflections.

Now tender Maikos,
white face of lead paint
sit silently
knees padded by the many
layers of stiff underdress
stifling yawns
as Big Sister Geishas
pour sake
exposing
ever so slightly
a marble- smooth wrist
that barely blushes with life-
Mysterious seduction!

They,
the silent chorus
behind the performers,
observing the trade
studying the manners
peering out with furtive
eyes,
looking at the men
rolling around the mats
acting foolish, drunk.

Slender ‘dancing-children’
with tender split- peach hairdos
driving men to lust
a ripe and blushing fruit
sitting above the red neckline of the
kimono,
a sample of the fruit
ready to be plucked
for the right price
to okiya.

Solemn Maikos,
they are
to follow the ways of
full-blown Geisha,
to be desired and sought
for beauty, grace, talents,
trapped within silken layers
beautiful butterflies and
night’s elusive moths,
dragging through life
clipped wings
of splendid colors.

Jane Kohut-Bartels
Copyrighted, 2009

“Bad Karma”

Something to lighten the mood…

BAD KARMA

Bao Ling sat on the balcony of Floating Wind brothel. A courtesan of low rank, she was deep into writing verse.  She now had a scroll of 100 poems, needing revision.

“Bao! Bao!  Squat Mother says you are to prepare for honored guest. Come in and apply your cosmetics.”

Poor lame Midori was her maid and Bao turned her face obediently to the brushes and powders of her only friend.

“Who is coming?” she said as Midori painted her eyebrows high on her forehead.

“So sorry, but it’s Tanaka-san today.”

Bao’s eyes widened.  “Aiiieee!  He likes things pushed in odd places!”

“Just do as he wants. We’ll have rice balls later.”

Tanaka-san’s karma was to be short shafted and have peculiar desires.   Bao mourned her own karma.

Later as Bao lay under him, he groaned and spread his cheeks, signaling Midori to plug his honored hole with an ivory dildo.  In her confusion Midori grabbed the slim scroll of poems, plunging it deep.  Tanaka-san yelled in delight and flooded the Treasure Grove of Bao with his spunk.

Midori was beaten. Over rice balls, they decided the poems had bad karma and probably belonged where they ended.

Jane Kohut-Bartels
Copyrighted, 2009