Sumi-e Paintings

Tea guests and students are now enjoying sumi-e paintings on the fusuma of the teahouse. After several years of discussion and waiting for the right moment to present itself, Nanga painter Michael Hofmann painted the fusuma in July of this year. The paintings encapsulate our Tea and Zen heritage -  Green Gulch / Bay Area landscapes - hillsides,coast and foggy mountains - done by a Californian who trained in Japan in a tradition that came from China.

Michael was raised in the Bay Area and has lived in Japan for most of the last 34 years, studying painting with a Nanga painter and Buddhist priest, the late Jikihara Gyokusei. Nanga, (Southern School of Chinese Painting),  is also known as "bunjin-ga" - "literati painting" - and is closely identified with the Obaku Sectof Zen.

Michael's work can be seen at: http://www.fsinet.or.jp/~ttstudio/hof-e.html