A few weekends ago I had the privilege of going to see the 18th Mino Washi Akari-Art Exhibition held every year in the old district of Mino City, Gifu, and I can tell you that it honestly surpassed all of my expectations in terms of the beauty of the town itself and the quality of the works of art made using Mino Washi Japanese paper and utilizing light.

On the way from Mino Station to the old, historic district, where the exhibition is held, I passed the old Mino Station, still intact and with a couple of train cars that people can enter and relax in for a bit. It was nice touch to see that kind of thing preserved.

...And here is the same scene an hour or so later, after it got dark and the exhibition got underway.

Aside from the works of art themselves, the town was very much a focus of the Mino Washi Akari-Art Exhibition, and this included spotlights drawing attention to the "udatsu," which you see in this photo. "Udatsu" are walls between houses that prevent the spread of fire from one house to another in the case of a large fire that would otherwise threaten the entire wooden town. They are one of the more famous features of the architecture in Mino. In fact, the historic district in Mino is named for the "udatsu," as is is called "udatsu no agaru machinami," or the "town where the udatsu rise."

And here are particularly memorable works of Mino Washi art that I was impressed by!

Even though this one with the flowers was towards the beginning of the neverending chain of works, I was convinced that it would be among the winners! (I was not correct.)

The design spells out "Mino Washi Akari-Art Exhibition!" Would be great as an advertisement for the exhibition!!

It may be somewhat difficult to tell from the photo, but this work featuring the cherry blossom tree was really exquisitely done.

And this one was probably one of the most colorful. It very much had the feeling of a traditional work of Japanese art.

Finally, a traditional Japanese Daruma (Dharma) doll.

And though there were still a bunch more fantastic works that I wanted to photograph...my camera died at this point! It had served me well, however...

The sheer number of Mino Washi pieces of art truly was impressive...it felt like an eternity had passed until I finally had seen every last one. I certainly not expected there to be that many, but I suppose that that speaks to the reknown of the festival.

In addition to several musical performances at several locations throughout the night, at the end, there was an awards ceremony where the winners of this year's contest were announced for the first time. The judges had been going around all night looking at all of the pieces, just as I had, and each chose one piece that he or she thought most deserved recognition.

None of the pieces that I had pegged as the best technically, most impressive, or most original made the cut, however. And yet, it was fascinating to hear the reasoning behind the judges' decisions, which they each elaborated on. How the piece made the best use of the qualities inherent to Japanese Mino Washi paper, how the piece could be taken as reactions to recent events such as the March 11th disaster, and the initial impressions that the works gave were all elements that the judges discussed. In the end, four works were honored out of the three hundred or so, and not all of them were made by Japanese artists, which again shows the international reach of this exhibition.

I was extremely impressed by what I saw and I can't wait to go back next year, and I hope that you will make an effort to be there too!!