Strong in the Rain: supporting Japan tsunami relief in a different way

It seems hard to fathom that it's been 4 months since the devastating tsunami in Japan.

Japan was in my thoughts this past weekend, as the Japanese women's soccer team bested the United States in the World Cup Final. While sad for our amazing American team, I couldn't help be happy that Japan would have something to cheer about.

My dear friend and artist Lisa Erickson has had Japan on her mind for awhile and she decided to create a hand-bound book illustrating a very famous poem by Kenji Miyazawa. His poem, "Strong in the Rain," had been circulating around Japan as a source of inspiration and a reminder of its peoples' inherent strength. Lisa created this book featuring her original sumi-e style paintings to illustrate this cherished poem (which was translated by Roger Pulvers with permission).

 

As many of you know, there are countless children who've been orphaned or lost a parent in this tragedy. The profits from the book will be sent to Ashinaga an organization that helps children who have lost one or both parents from a natural disaster. Ashinaga has built Rainbow houses which provide a place where children can receive grief counseling through play. Ashinaga broke ground on a new Rainbow house in Tohoku the region of the tsunami in April 2011.

If you are interesting in purchasing one of Lisa's beautiful, hand-bound, letter press cover books, please click here to be taken to her Etsy store. She only had 100 of them created. You can learn more about her book by clicking here.

It was my honor to help Lisa design the pages of this simple book.

To learn more about Lisa's book, click here. Thank you.