The Last Breakfast
From July 10th to July 19th, I will be holding a solo exhibition titled "Smelling the Sound, Eating the Wind, Plucking the Light" at OFF THE RECORD in Kakuozan, Nagoya.
That day, too, I missed the last train and was walking home.
If I start from Sakuragicho and walk along the Ooka River for about three hours, I'll reach my place.
On the way, I was hit by an incredible wave of sleepiness and finally lay down on the side of the road to sleep. Even though I hadn't had a single drop of alcohol. I'm a habitual non-alcoholic last-train-misser.
I'm usually supposed to be home before 4:00 AM, but by the time I reached the area of my nearest station, it was already past 5:00.
Before summer... writing this reminded me, it was on my way back from manning the gallery during my solo exhibition "Zapping," which was held simultaneously at two locations, PARK GALLERY and Galerie Le Monde, three years ago. I had received some very insightful advice and was burning with hope for the future. When that happens, you don't really care about the trip home, do you? (Actually, you do.)
Summer was coming, and dawn was breaking early. I was almost home. There's a family restaurant that's just naturally there when you walk along the national highway. When you reach the angle where the narrow three-way junction merges into the large intersection of the highway, you can see the back of the restaurant. The back wall of the restaurant, struck by the morning sun, and the red line of its trademark color running along the wall looked like a Famicom, which I found funny.
I wandered around there for a while and took some photos.
Thinking I'd paint it someday, I painted it on a size 30 panel as a piece for my solo exhibition "Humming City" the following year.
Because I used a telephoto lens, there was so much to draw that it was tough, but it became a painting I'm very attached to.
From then on, every time I passed by the family restaurant, I kept taking photos. Since the building structure has a parking lot on the first floor, I could cut through the parking lot to take a shortcut to the three-way junction (though I really shouldn't have, lol), and there was a pedestrian bridge nearby, so I could take photos from various angles.
I intend to continue slowly releasing paintings of the family restaurant in the future.
Just as I was thinking that, it unexpectedly closed down. A countdown starting from a month ago. I've lived in this town for 15 years, so it was quite a shock. Come to think of it, I didn't really go there to eat that often, haha.
Until today, the closing day, I wandered around the family restaurant more than ever and took photos, but I didn't go inside. Because, well, painting a picture of the food... it's a chain restaurant, after all... I thought.
But to repent for my past deeds and to quietly show my gratitude, I decided to go for breakfast. The last breakfast. Partly because I had been working on my solo exhibition for next month all night, I was too sleepy to really savor it, and my farewell to the cat-shaped serving robot ended quite abruptly (that guy goes back on its own even if you don't press the button, right?). I tried to write this diary in detail, but halfway through, I got a stomachache and locked myself in the restroom, so I think I was a rather troublesome customer.
I left the store quickly and took a photo of the parking lot from the angle looking down from the second floor before leaving.
I intend to paint that for this solo exhibition.
Anyway, I am sorry for everything until now. Thank you very much. Thanks to you, I was able to paint good pictures. I should have properly asked the staff for permission to do research and paint every corner of the place.
