Kayda Matsushita

Brother Kenji walked slowly down past the monastery vegetable garden and through the zelkova trees to the swampy ground beyond. It was a path that dear Brother Akimitsu had often taken in his last days to stand watching the birds as the Sun slid westward.

Zoroaster spoke of the path, Buddha of the noble eight-fold path, ‘Tao’ means ‘path’, the Hebrew word for ‘law’ is ‘the walking’, ‘shariah’ means ‘the path to the watering hole’. ‘Ask for the ancient path, where the good way is, and walk in it, and you shall find rest for your souls.’

Brother Kenji stood and stared over the marshy ground. Kayda Matsushita – her name meant ‘little dragon under the fir tree’.

It had been hard, after years of helping Brother Akimitsu in his little ceramic studio, to adjust to being without him. It was a year after the death of his old friend that Brother Kenji was summoned to the abbot’s office. The Maeda Hiromi Art Gallery in Kyoto’s Minami-ku ward – between the To-ji Buddhist temple and Nintendo’s head office – wanted to put on a major retrospective of Brother Akimitsu’s work. They were sending someone to go through the work still in his studio, any unfinished work, any journals and sketches and workbooks. Also, photographs of the studio, of ceramic pieces in situ in the studio, atmospheric shots of the monastery would all add to the exhibition and to the accompanying book. Brother Kenji had been closest to Brother Akimitsu, had helped him, had known most about his ideas and work – it made sense for the abbot to appoint him to liaise with the representative from the gallery: Kayda Matsushita.

Over the next months, Brother Kenji and Kayda Matsushita spent hours together pouring over old books, directing the photographer, classifying works and building up an overview of the old master’s work.

Brother Kenji watched the swallows, his feet and the hem of his robe wet and muddy from the edge of the path, as the evening approached.

A common feature of Brother Akimitsu’s work had been the use he made of words – incised in the ceramic surface or painted with startling precision in the smooth glaze.

That day, Brother Kenji and Kayda Matsushita had found in one of Brother Akimitsu’s sketchbooks ideas for a piece that he never seemed to have actually completed. Across the curve of the shape, words in medieval Italian:

Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita
mi ritrovai per una selva oscura
ché la diritta via era smarrita …

Midway in our life’s journey, I went astray
from the straight road and woke to find myself
alone in a dark wood …


Dhiraja