Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji

So it literally just came out in May and it was launched down in the Mermaid.

And myself and a painter and printer were very sort of, I suppose, modelling it on Hokusai's 36 Views of Mount Fuji.

But unfortunately, my friend and collaborator died.

But again, it was one of those stories or one of those kind of sequences that wouldn't let go.

He was able to keep each one fresh and interesting and unique, but yet at the same time, they're all tied together in this group because they're all waterfalls.

He did exactly the same thing in a project he titled Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji, which obviously has thirty-six woodblock prints, every one of which has Mount Fuji in it.

Sometimes it's a big dominant thing, sometimes a little tiny thing way off in the background, but they all have Mount Fuji in them.

And again, it was an exploration of a theme that was deep, that was not repetitive, that kept you wanting to spend time with each successive image in the series because they were so marvelously and wonderfully done.

But there's another subtle lesson that goes beyond that.

Because in addition to thirty-six views of Mount Fuji, he also did a series called One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji that doesn't have any of the thirty-six involved in it.

Basically, he went back to what we assume is his favorite subject or one of his favorite subjects, which is Mount Fuji, and did a completely separate second project that had a hundred views, where the first views of Mount Fuji only had thirty-six, again, exploring the theme deeply.

And the way that opened up a creative door in my life was this.