The planting

Until the mid seventies, in the farming village Unomachi, in the mountains, on Shikoku Island, in Japan, all the rice was planted by hand.

A hundred women would line up before dawn to trudge, almost knee deep, through the mud of the rice paddies, stepping, stooping, carefully planting each seedling, until the setting of the sun.

Dedicated to Haruko Utsunnomiya, a delightful lady who was one of those hundred women.

Faber-Castell pens and Neocolor II crayons on 12 by 12 inch colored stock.