View all of my free Japanese lessons! … or read below to see how really crazy I am.

I hardly have enough time to breathe as is. I work 80-120 hours a week just to make ends meet as a contemporary Japanese artist.* I spend so much time in my art studio that I frequently get emails from my family and friends to see if I’m still alive. Every second of my life is pretty much booked solid and I just decided to start learning Japanese again. Wait… what!?!

I must be crazy!! What I really need is to catch up on sleep!

I used to know some Japanese while living in Japan. However, a decade has passed without me hearing or speaking the language, so I pretty much lost the language. The only thing I kept up was my practice of Japanese calligraphy (Zen Brushworks) **.

Since my memories of Japan are still vivid in my mind and this country is one of the greatest influences in my Japanese art, it only makes sense that I study its culture and language once again. Although I’m currently way too broke to visit Japan, I hope my studies will help me bring more depth into my art. After all, I’m always looking for ways to make my artwork undergo an evolution.

As I’m learning Japanese, from absolute beginner to hopefully an advanced level, I will be posting my written and audio notes in my blog. I was going to take notes anyway, so I might as well post them online. Even though I’m far from an expert in this language, I believe that you don’t have to be an expert to pass on the knowledge that you DO have.

Another great thing about posting my written and audio notes is that, if you so happen to speak the Japanese language, you can always correct me if I make a mistake because this is how I will learn. All comments on my blog will be appreciated.

* Please don’t feel sorry for me. I love my work and I gladly sacrifice my time / life for art.

** My Zen Brushworks are not available to the public.  Why?  Go to my blog post “Japanese Zen Brushwork and Its Influence on my Zen Sho Collection” to find out more.

Here’s a video of me, Soniei, trying to explain the evolution and inspiration behind my Japanese art.

This video includes a brief explanation of how I left the 9-5 work world to live my dream as a full-time artist.

Tags: About Soniei, About Soniei's Art, Asian Art, Asian Paintings, Canadian Artist, Contemporary Art, Contemporary Asian Art, Contemporary Asian Paintings, Contemporary Japanese Art, Contemporary Japanese Paintings, Contemporary Painting, Fine Art, Free Japanese Audio Lessons, Free Japanese Lessons, Japanese Art, Japanese Brushwork, Japanese Culture, Japanese Lessons, Learn Japanese

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 21st, 2009 at 2:17 pm and is filed under About Me, About my Art, Japanese Lessons, Journey as an Artist. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.