LOEWE | Toshio Suzuki in conversation with Tomoko Kawao

Well, it really is early summer, truly... But it's suspicious to say early summer. I'm 2000 books, you know? One sideways jump. And next to Kyoto in Hyogo prefecture, there's a place called Izushi-cho, which you probably don't know.

Huh? It's the place of Takuan's golden shrine? I see, yes yes. It's a nice place, but it's nothing special.

So there, by the river, I was playing with the boys and for some reason... Well, if I could just calm down a bit. Then my mother thought, if it's Shoko...

Yes. I don't know if she thought I was hopeless, but I was only playing with boys, so... I was like that too, but even as a child I could eat it. I had to do it. Well, from what age did it become my constant? Because I came back with a brush, so it was natural. I had to do it.

Well, with a photo, it's beautiful once. I think there's only myself writing now. If it were tomorrow, it would be different. There's that. Leaving myself and making it into a work was the first thing. The first character I wrote was 'live'. In the second half, Nirvana reaction, anti-establishment, yes a major rod. So it's always like a cigar. Not enjoying the present, but with that concept.

Huh? Like, you leave it to your own three? Yes, but originally calligraphy comes from the small path of Asokura. So man is also a file, the same pictographs. I thought I wanted to leave myself year after year until I die. That became the one-character series.

Yes, it really changes with my mood. Somehow it's very gentle and kind. Oh, you say interesting things. There are many early summer flowers.

What is this person saying? Actually, you gave me freedom. I only draw one thing from what I learned on the radio. Freely handle it, like skewers. Oh, so it flows. Amazing. I wonder if it changed at that time, how the brush moved. I want to imagine that. After all, when you start writing, the body doesn't move as you think, and there's something uncontrollable. I think that's why I continue, because you can't reproduce where the drop falls.

No no, maybe I'm a fake. At home, what is it? Writing without thinking ahead... I tend to think, so I often sketch. So maybe that's completely different. But what part of Suzuki's work do you think is good?

Is it the so-called 'earth'? This one, I want to see it quickly. It's easy to write. There are various ways when mixing large characters and small characters. It changes with my mood. One of the moments when I think about what is coming is to write a draft digitally. Then the content changes. What is this? Is this volume 5 of Koudan? Light becomes heavy. I feel that too. So I raise it to 9. The content changes. Then my iPad makes a sound. Ah, it's really convenient. But while using it, I feel it's not good. In terms of physique, you have to sit at a desk. Do you start from the burning side? Something like that. But you often wrote 'a' in it, right? Maeda, yes.

Originally, for me, it was meeting with Hayao Miyazaki. And we both had one characteristic: he draws while talking. I used to draw too, but I couldn't write in front of him. That person becomes the work. Yes. Somehow the sense of balance is good. It's amazing, it settles beautifully as a work. When you worry about the top, it falls. Each one has a source. Not moving. At most that's it. My own thing? What should I do? Air? Amazing. So it's also good. Really, it's a one-shot challenge. That was just right. After all, it feels good. The way you write is wrong, zii zii. [laughter]