ママ（娘）と３歳のおしゃべりな男の子（孫）の会話から絵を描きました。
 
はじめて本を作りました。
娘が３歳の時の孫との会話を残してくれていて、ふたりの会話がおもしろく絵にしたいなぁと思っていました。
 
こどもからは教えてもらう事がたくさん。
固定観念とか知ってるつもりの知識とか見事にひっくり返してくれてやられます。このやられをとても幸せに感じます。
 
絵を描いている時には何を考えているのか、色や構図や表情や筆選びなどはもちろんですが、全然違う事もたくさん考えていました。
 
例えば両親の顔が浮かんだりしました。
父は昨年空へ旅立ちましたが、名古屋へ嫁ぐ朝に車で新大阪駅まで送ってくれた時間の事など。（なんで今思い出した？）と思いましたが、ありがとうとかなかなか言えないような言ったような、早く新幹線に乗りたいような乗りたくないような。もじゃもじゃした時間。あの時間は何度思い出してももじゃもじゃします。
 
中学校の体育の先生になりたかった私が急に美術の世界に行きたいと言った日の事や、ふわふわのベットを買ってくれた日に嬉しすぎて興奮して眠れなくて泣いて結局父のふとんで寝た事や、タイル施工をしている父と手を繋ぐとガサガサで大きかった事や、一つ思い出すとズルズルともうとりとめなく。
 
休憩にベランダに出てメダカに餌をやり植物に水をやり。隣の部屋から音だけ聞こえるオリンピック競技に興奮し（途中ドキドキして見れないのでちょうど良い）昼寝をし、連日そうめんを食べ、高校野球でたまに「おおっ！」と声を上げ、大谷君の速報はとりあえずチェックし、デコピンはしっかりチェックしほくそ笑み、そんな夏を過ごしていました。
 
絵を描く事ができる事に何度も何度も何度もありがたく思い、父母の子供に産まれて私がここにいる事に、大阪で育った私が名古屋で楽しく過ごせている事に、娘や息子や孫につながっている事に、何にもないいつもの普通と思っている時間の事や、明日がちゃんと来た事や、たくさん自分と話をしていました。そしてちゃんと来てくれた秋にこの本が出来上がりました。
ありがとうございます。
 
B5（182mm×257mm)
表紙：布表紙＋箔黒
本文：P52（作品25点）質問：佐野双葉
答え・見返し絵：佐野喜一
絵：井上えつ子
発行所：Pako Art
印刷・製本：㈱イニュニック
 
I painted these works based on the conversations between my daughter (the mom) and my talkative three-year-old grandson. This is the first book I have ever created. My daughter had saved the conversations she had with him when she herself was three years old, and their exchanges were so charming that I had long wanted to turn them into art. Children teach us so many things.
They effortlessly overturn our fixed ideas and the “knowledge” we think we already understand—and I find that feeling of being upended wonderfully joyful.
While I was painting, of course I was thinking about colors, composition, expressions, and brushes, but I was also thinking about many completely different things.
For example, moments with my parents came to mind.
My father passed away last year, but I suddenly remembered the morning he drove me to Shin-Osaka Station when I left to get married and move to Nagoya. I thought, Why am I remembering this now?
I couldn’t quite say “thank you,” or maybe I did…
I wanted to get on the bullet train quickly, yet also didn’t want to.
That muddled, tangled feeling. No matter how many times I think back on it, it still feels tangled in the same way.
I remembered the day when I suddenly told my parents—who knew I wanted to become a PE teacher in middle school—that I wanted to go into the world of art instead.
Or the day they bought me a fluffy bed and I got so excited I couldn’t sleep, cried, and ended up sleeping in my father’s futon.
Or how his hands were rough and big when I held them while he worked laying tiles.
Once one memory surfaced, the rest followed one after another without end.
During breaks I would step out onto the balcony to feed the medaka fish and water the plants.
I got excited listening—only listening—to the Olympic events coming from the next room (the suspense makes it hard for me to watch directly).
I took naps, ate somen noodles day after day, shouted “Whoa!” at high-school baseball from time to time, checked Ohtani’s news updates, made sure to check Decopin and grin to myself, and spent my summer like that.
Over and over again, I felt grateful simply for being able to paint.
Grateful for having been born to my parents, for being here, for the fact that a girl who grew up in Osaka is now happily living in Nagoya, for being connected to my daughter, my son, and my grandson, for all the ordinary moments I take for granted, and for the simple fact that tomorrow really arrived.
I spent a lot of time talking with myself.
And when autumn reliably came, this book was completed.
Thank you very much.

B5 (182 mm × 257 mm)
Cover: Cloth cover + black foil Interior: 52 pages (25 artworks)
Questions: Futaba Sano
Answers & endpaper illustrations: Kiichi Sano
Artwork: Etsuko Inoue
Publisher: Pako Art
Printing & Binding: Inunik Co., Ltd.