Montserrat College of Art’s Japanese Art + Culture travel program is being held through June 24. We will post information on their trip from time to time. There are 10 students on this year’s trip traveling with faculty member Blyth Hazen and Asst. Dean of Student Services Len Thomas-Vickory. Besides taking courses and earning credit, the students will visit significant historical and cultural sites around the cities of Niigata, Osaka, Kyoto, Takarazuka and Tokyo.

Montserrat alumni Emi Okamoto who works at Niigata College of Art and Design and alumus Anders Hagman, assisted with the arrangements. The students are being housed by Japanese families. Alumna Hedwiga Kulig is staying with 3 of the students in a traditional Japanese farmhouse in a small town called Shibata – outside of Niigata.

Blyth Hazen files these reports:

6/2/10
We started the day with a hands on woodblock print workshop with Tetsuo Abe. In the afternoon we had a lecture on contemporary Japanese design practices by Shuihiro Koizumi. We finished the day with a Montserrat/NCAD collaborative drawing workshop. Much laughter and vocabulary building.

6/3/10
Today we went to an Anime/Manga college (JAM)  in Niigata – was awesome – hands on Manga wokshops – another Montserrat alumni now works at Jam – I will post more pictures to the Facebook group later.

Mr. Kato the president of NCAD has taken the entire group out for dinner 3 times and is putting Len and me up in a hotel the entire time we are in Niigata.

Japan program on Facebook.