Carrying on from yesterday's earthquake-based excitement (please click here to see how I fared with the 1st Annual Great BC Shakeout), I realized I was missing an important piece of information. The Shakeout is a province-wide earthquake preparedness drill. It takes place on the 311th anniversary of the last Magnitude 9.0 eathquake to strike British Columbia. Well, here is what I missed: how the blazes did anybody from the year 1700 know there was a 9.0 earthquake?
There was a thriving native society on the North American west coast, but their traditions were passed orally, and not written. They speak of a great earthquake in the past, but do not specify the date.
As it turns out, the advanced Japanese civilization did have a written record of the quake. More specifically, they had record of a massive tsunami (a large ocean wave created by an earthquake), but without mention of any earthquakes in their region. Paleobotanists used forensic science to uncover evidence of ancient destruction, pinning the event to a roughly 9.0 size quake occurring on January 26, 1700. A 9.0 quake would be strong enough to push a wall of water all the way from B.C. across the Pacific Ocean and onto the shores of Japan.
The art piece I have created is a compilation of several Japanese woodcuts. The most famous is The Great Wave Off Kanagawa by Hokusai. I also took pieces from ukiyo-e (Japanese woodcut prints) of Shinie and Tokaido (actors), as well as from Hashiguchi. I composited them together in Photoshop, then traced out all the lines by hand to make a new picture, including a goofy facial expression for the fellow whose afternoon tea was forcibly diluted by a mass of seawater. I painted in many new colours and patterns digitally.
I think the kanji text is for a tsunami warning. I got a translation from Jim Breen's WWWJDIC Online Japanese Dictionary, but I have no way to know if I wrote it out correctly.
The shiitake reference is my own take on a very obscure joke based on material that was cut out of the motion picture "The Abyss" (1989).
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