Inspiring Books

When photographing an area for an extensive project it is important to not only look, but to read and get behind the images and scenes. To put yourself into the new aesthetic and understand and appreciate what you are creating. Over the course of my recent project, The Art of Mystery-Kyoto in its Season, I have read and studied the following books and anthologies:

The Book of Tea by Kakuzo Okakura
Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami
The Haiku Anthology, 3rd edition, edited by Cor Van Den Heuvel
The Old Capital by Yasunari Kawabata
The Temple of the Golden Pavilion by Yukio Mishima
The Essential Haiku, Versions of Basho, Buson and Issa, edited by Hass
Light Verse from the Floating World, Anthology of Japanese Senryu
Dewdrops on a Lotus Leaf, Zen poems by Ryokan
Songs from a Bamboo Village by Shiki Mosaoka
Zen in the Art of Archery by Eugen Herrigel
Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata
Palm of the Hand Stories by Yasunari Kawabata
The Classic Tradition of Haiku Anthology, edited by Faubion Bowers
The Spring of my Life and selected Haiku by Kobayashi Issa
An Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro
The Haiku Handbook by William Higginson
A Pale View of Hills by Kazuo Ishiguro
In Praise of Shadows by Junichiro Tanizaki
Wabi-Sabi by Leonard Koren
Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto
Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
Love Poems from the Japanese
Back Roads to Far Towns by Basho
One hundred Poems from One hundred Poets
The Dancing Girl of Izu by Yasunari Kawabata
Haiku: A Poet’s Guide by Lee Gurga
The Teahouse Fire by Ellis Avery
Rashomon and other stories by Ryunosuke Akutagawa

Modern Haiku

After Rain, available at Rolly-Michaux Gallery

The photograph After Rain which is part of the Art of Mystery, Kyoto in its Season exhibition at Rolly-Michaux Gallery this April, is featured on the cover of the Winter/Spring 2007 edition of Modern Haiku Magazine. Modern Haiku is America's premiere English language haiku journal.

Rolly-Michaux Gallery is located at 290 Dartmouth Street in the Vendome Building, Boston, MA 02116. Tel. 617.536.9898.

Travel Journals

Faded Bough, Robert Castagna, Edition of 15

I would stress the importance of keeping a journal while creating a series of work. Art starts off extremely personal and is really an internal dialogue. This dialogue is the seed of your artistic idea. The journal is a way to express these ideas and work them out. Therefore as I work, I keep a journal and often go back to it to recapture the initial inspiration. Once worked out you share them with others. On my trips in Kyoto I found myself reading and writing haiku. Therefore many of my journal entries are interspersed with haiku. It was not until later that I discovered such writing has a history going back to Basho and is known as haibun: short prose and haiku written as a journal.

One of my Cafe haibun was recently published and can be viewed at Contemporary Haibun Online.

Haiku Reading

Zen Line, Robert Castagna, edition of 15

April 21, Saturday 5-6 PM
HAIKU READING: Raffael de Gruttola and Friends of the Boston Haiku Society. To accompany the exhibition of photographs The Art of Mystery, Kyoto in its Season by artist Robert Castagna, there will be a special reading of haiku by the Boston Haiku Society.

Location: 290 Dartmouth Street at the Vendome. Boston, MA 02116. Attendance is free. For more information contact the gallery at 617.536.9898.

The Jewish Advocate

The Jewish Advocate, the oldest continually-circulated Jewish newspaper in the United States recently released their Wedding and Celebration Guide. On the cover is the above wedding photograph taken by Robert Castagna, depicting Ron, Julie and Rabbi Larry Bazer. To view the cover go to THE JEWISH ADVOCATE.