Miya Ando’s Rain Drawings: A Night at Sundaram Tagore Gallery

“When you value something truly, you give it a name,” multidisciplinary artist Miya Ando told Tricycle’s editor-in-chief, James Shaheen, on a recent episode of Tricycle Talks. That’s just what Ando did when she compiled her book, the award-winning Water of the Sky: A Dictionary of 2,000 Japanese Words for Rain. Known for depicting impermanence in her work—from clouds to the waxing and waning of the moon—Ando originally set off to capture the transitory, ephemeral, almost invisible nature of rain with a series of drawings. She ended up creating a beautiful dictionary listing 2,000 Japanese words for rain, featuring expressions from Buddhist rain sutras, Heian-era poetic anthologies, and specific regions of Japan. The terms are accompanied by 100 of almost 2,000 original drawings made with natural indigo dye, graphite, and pure silver powder on handmade kozo paper. Rain Drawings, a new exhibit at the Sundaram Tagore Gallery in New York City, showcases a series of new visual interpretations of some of Ando’s translations, along with one of only two hand-bound collections of the complete body of work. Join us in-person on October 22 to view and hear more about this new exhibit, which asks us to consider how language and art hone our attention and cultivate deep appreciation.