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Museum-Quality Matte Paper Print available in two sizes:
12" x 16" (30cm x 40cm): $35.00
24" x 32" (60cm x 80cm): $48.00
A light rain begins falling on the quiet tea house, and your view takes in the cherry blossoms drifting down to meet themselves in the mirror of the water. Green tea catches the silvery light in its fragrant steam, and you savor the little bowls of sweet-salt. Your spicy snacks looks like the koi fish trailing below amid the fat moss and weeping pines. This is the Japanese Tea Garden in San Francisco, California - the best place in all of the City.
I painted this San Francisco landmark as a dual tribute to its gardener and to my family's multi-generational appreciation of this special place. Mr. Makoto Hagiwara designed this five-acre garden at the close of the 19th century and lived amid its beauty until World War II, when he was interned along with over 100,000 other Japanese neighbors. It is one of the great injustices of California history that the Hagiwaras were never allowed to return to this exquisite sanctuary. For over a century, visitors have derived incalculable benefit from being able to walk and rest in this little haven in Golden Gate Park amid the busy City. I am so grateful to Mr. Hagiwara.
I also hoped to capture my family's abiding affection for the Japanese Tea Garden. As native San Franciscans, we have come to this inspiring place again and again, as children, as newlyweds, as young families, as older couples with grandkids in tow.
As a child, I felt utterly immersed in this green place with its endless-seeming paths, its moon bridge, its pagoda, its squirrels and fish, its flowering trees, azaleas, camellias, and maples. In spring, I felt as if walking in a landscape of pastel clouds, and in autumn, the russet and fiery foliage taught me about the cycles of the world. We visited Buddha with grave respect, and learned to be quiet and observant. I saved my pennies for a trip to the gift shop, but the culmination of all was the tea house.
Sitting on the shiny orange stools and being treated to tea made trips to the Japanese Tea Garden great occasions. I have painted the refreshments as I remember them from childhood - the small stoneware bowls of sesame, almond, and fortune cookies, and the flat fortune-cookie-like confections that resembled full moons. Then there was the prettily-shaped Hapi mix, with its tang of soy and seaweed. When my elder brother was deemed old enough to ride the bus back in those gentler days, he and a friend would head to the tea house and order tea for two and cookies for four - a feast! You had a choice of green tea or jasmine. What did you choose?
By hanging a museum-quality print of San Francisco's Japanese Tea Garden in your home or office, you can always visit it in thought and celebrate the rich diversity that gives the City its strength and merit. A print would make an elegant gift for anyone who loves the Tea Garden, and for visitors to the San Francisco Bay Area. It is a quiet, serene picture that invites you to pause. We are all so fortunate to get to be part of this place, thanks for Mr. Hagiwara.