My seven-year-old grandson PJ loves cranes and asked if we could draw one together. This is my favorite bird yet! And I love that he designed his own chop. I asked him what it meant. He said “bird artist.” My chop represents the sounds of the syllables of my last name. The top kanji translates as purification; the bottom one as dawn. Kimono artists we met in Kyoto over 25 years ago chose these kanji for me. Many Japanese words can sound phonetically close to a syllable of a Western name, so the particular ideographs chosen have significance. I love these for a daily practice, where every day is a new start.