When I travel, I try to engage with the local art in either a contemporary or historical sense. I find it a unique method of perceiving culture at a point in time. My brief stint in Japan (in late April) led me to the Ota Memorial Museum of Art, which featured a collection of ukiyo-e by Utagawa Hiroshige called One Hundred Famous Views of Edo. Ukiyo-e is a genre of Japanese woodblock printmaking whose name means "pictures of a floating world." Born from the homophone ukiyo, a Buddhist term meaning "sorrowful and transient world," ukiyo-e aimed instead to celebrate the transient pleasures of urban culture in Edo from the 17th to 19th centuries. You are probably familiar with at least one piece from the era, The Great Wave off Kanagawa.

Hiroshige was a master ukiyo-e artist of the 19th century. All of the one hundred prints depicting common scenes of Edo were on display, along with his sketches. The lady in front of me seemed to be checking off a list as she went, giving me plenty of time to spend with each display. Whenever there were sketches, I was enraptured. Seeing the gears turn on rough paper – the effort – made me feel oddly more connected. This is what Austin Kleon must mean in his book, Show Your Work! (you may know his other popular book, Steal like an Artist).

The prints had unique choices of composition and point of view. One in particular stood out: The Plum Garden in Kameido, in which the majority of the work is obscured by the plain branches of a plum tree. It acts as a frame for the characters in the background. Suddenly, the background is the focal point. How did something so small become so important? I was unfamiliar with this contrast; it pleased me to no end. It pleased Van Gogh too. He was a fan of Hiroshige's work and painted Flowering Plum Orchard (after Hiroshige), a copy and tribute to Hiroshige's original.

I was moved reading Van Gogh's letters when I visited the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. How strange it was that he popped up again. I felt a warmth and realized that I am in good hands.

Hiroshige, to Van Gogh, to Suchaaver. Ah, but does my name belong alongside theirs?