What a nice thing about being a curator

is that I could easily get to know PEOPLE beyond age, sex, nationality and occupation. Today, I had lunch in China Town with a female painter whom I don't know her age, but I assume that she would be in her fifties. Her trademarks are a read frame glass and gray hair, which looks impeccable for her feature. We conversed about various topics such as art, art market, politics, cultural differences between Japan and the US and how art could manifest those differences and what else? Yeah food! After the chat and food, I opened a fortune cookie, which said " There is true and sincere friendship between you both." How nice? I saw her through a friend of mine, a German artist and saw each other for a few times with always the third party or more. Today, officially, it was the first time that we sat at the same table in a face-to-face position. This diverseness or causality of making friends would hardly happen in Japan. Let's say, if she were Japanese with the exact same status, I would have to use polite language all the time and answer certain questions like "are you married?" "How does your family do?" "Why do you live alone?" Or, she would give a long lecture about the history of her art. Due to politeness in our language, we separate from each other and never are able to really get over a wall. This, you –are-young-like-my-daughter attitude minimizes an opportunity to be really related to each other. So, being in NYC and being a curator enable me to connect people like, needles to say, artists and people like a CEO whom I would not know otherwise. Sure, when it comes to a collector, you might have to behave in a certain way, yet, still, we talks (not the lecture style) the same language, “art,” which allows us to stand on the same terrain. Encountering somebody is like the spring wind. Getting to know him/her is like a stream. Getting closer is like swimming in the vast ocean. I felt good today, despite the chilly weather for April and a bit of sickness.