Kinya Hanada a.k.a. Mumbleboy

I thought I'd write about 3 things relating to water. None of them is even worth mentioning on its own, but I thought the way they are related might be something interesting to write about. We shall see if I manage to write anything worthwhile reading.

The other day, I walked by this business called The Rainbarrel Man Co. I thought that's an interesting idea to sell barrels for collecting rainwater, but didn't think too much more into it. Then later on, I thought about it again and thought that's a great way to make use of a natural resource and lessen the burden on municipal resource.


(Columbia Slough Trail pond)

Another day, I biked up North to Columbia Slough Trail. (I'd been riding my bike to parts of Portland I hadn't been yet) It wasn't the most scenic trail I'd been on, but it looked pretty enough. I came to a pond and decided to take a break there. The pond looked alright at first, then I noticed the air smelled a bit like sewage. There was some weed growing around the pond, but the dirt on the edge of water looked very black and lifeless. On the way back, I noticed that the pond was part of a water treatment facility. That must be where the water we use end up. I don't know the exact process of cleaning up used water, but I imagine, after going through some filtering, the water will sit in a pond like that to let toxic stuff settle to the bottom and then it will be released back into the river. I'm just speculating, but as I sat there smelling the sewage like air, I thought that this is the direct result of how we use water and it's kept away from us (unless we venture out to a place like this), but it's important to acknowledge that.

The third thing. I answered an email interview about our Etsy shop recently and one of the questions was "What is the importance of being eco conscious for you and your store?" I gave a vague answer like we try to do what's good for the environment, etc. Then I thought later on, would it have been more interesting to write something more specific? There is one thing I have been doing which is really not a big deal, but maybe qualifies as "eco conscious". Since I do a lot of painting of paper mache figures, there is always the task of cleaning the paint off of brushes. I think the normal way to go about it is to dunk the brush in water, shake it about to get the paint off and afterwards, dump the dirty water in the sink. This procedure is in effect is putting paint into the water and I didn't feel very good about doing that. So, I've developed a way over time in which I don't have to dump paint water back into the sink. First, I clean the brush with newspaper.(I will use this newspaper for paper mache) Then I soak the brush into a container of water. I don't shake the brush and I wipe the wet brush with a rag. repeat this a few times until not much paint comes off the brush, then shake the brush in the water and wipe it. This way, the water will take much longer to become dirty. I use this same container of water until it's too dirty to get the brush fully clean.(days or weeks depending on amount of use) I usually use another container of water in conjunction to use after the first container to get it fully clean. When the water is too dirty, I don't throw it out, but put the container out of the way to let the water evaporate. Usually, I use the bottom of a paper milk carton for the container and after the water has evaporated, then I could throw that out which isn't the most ecological way, but I think is a slight improvement from putting paint directly into the water. Another thing I do is the brushes I use for gesso, I saw off the ends of them to put inside a gesso container with just a bit of gesso at the bottom. This way the brushes won't dry up, so you don't need to clean them at all.



Well, I thought maybe talking about these 3 different things of human interaction with water would somehow paint a big picture, but maybe this was mostly just practical tips about cleaning brushes! Probably not interesting at all to those of you who don't work with paint, but I think these kinds of mundane things effect our environment. The smell of air at one place maybe a direct result of your action at another place.

In the continuing theme of writing not about my artwork, I'll write about what we do everyday, eating.

I ran across this article which is a NPR link about this book called "In Defense of Food" by the author Michael Pollan who also wrote "Omnivore's Dilemma". You can also listen to the author being interviewed on NPR from a link there.

I would really recommend you check it out and read his books if you can. I won't be able to do justice to try and describe what he is saying in his books, but it's kind of like what you eat, how that food is made and transported and what is used to make that food have a direct impact on our health and environment. A lot of our food is based on just a few crops like corn, wheat and soy and they are made with chemical fertilizers which are made with oil, so we really use a lot of fossil fuel to grow our food and also to transport it. In the audio interview he suggests that we move away from this fossil fuel based system to a more solar based agriculture. To do that, it would help if the government changed its policy and tried to encourage this kind of farming which might seem far fetching for most of us who don't feel like we have any access to such government policy making, but there is something we can do everyday, every time we feed ourselves and that is to "vote" by eating. How we acquire food and what we eat can have impact. If we choose not to eat food grown and transported with fossil fuel, there will be less demand and encourage other ways of agriculture.

Of course, it's ideal to eat organic solar based food at all times, but that may be too inconvenient and expensive at times, but luckily we do this eating thing everyday several times a day, so if we are guilty of not being the idealistic eater at one meal, there is always the next time for redemption.

I think a lot of people here in Portland are very aware of these food issues, but if you haven't heard these kinds of things, I really recommend cheking out Michael Pollan's books first.

(The picture above is of the lunch set at Nagi Shokudo in Tokyo which is a Vegan diner.)