This was something I came upon in a book in my hotel room in Tokyo a couple years ago. The Life Size Project started on New Years Day 2001 at the Meiji Shrine. People make their first shrine visit of the new year on January 1st, so there are many people around and it is a good time for surveys. They ask people of varying ages how long they would like to live. Some of the answers really surprised me. I chose four women with interesting faces and copied their answers. The number on the left tells how old they currently are and on the right is the age they hope to live to. I used pencil and watercolors.
This is a painting study reproducing the lovely work from a...
trebor61 2:32 pm on December 21, 2008 | #
Linda. What an interesting concept! I wonder why 75% of your “people” put a finite limit on their level of mortality? (although it seems that the older women have come to terms with things). I am with the person in the bottom right hand sketch. Anyone who paints, writes, broadcasts whatever must, by logic, achieve a degree of immortality. Mind you, the Irish get top marks for memorials. I came across a brilliant quote, added to a memorial bench in Dublin, where my wife and I spent a happy holiday earlier this year.
Remember me is all I ask, And yet. If the remembrance prove a task. Forget.
Linda Bachrach 8:35 pm on December 21, 2008 | #
Well the girl who wanted to live forever, was the only person who said that, out of many more! I believe that most Japanese people would see the question and believe they HAD to pick a finite number, and the younger girl was just perhaps more Westernized and said what she felt.
Interesting quote. Did you sketch the bench?
trebor61 4:35 am on December 22, 2008 | #
Strangely enough I didn’t sketch the seat. I had made an effort to visit Patrick Kavenagh’s statue on the banks of Dublin’s Grand Canal and sketched this (see forum “my recent efforts using Moleskine books). While I sketched Margaret sat on this bench, which is made of marble, and read. I only noticed the quote after I finished. (Must post my Kavenagh sketch sometime) You can see the bench, placed for Percy French, by visiting http://www.mindhacks.com/blog/2007/04/remember_me_is_all_i.html
Kavenagh’s statue is roughly where this photograph was taken from.