It's not unusual to meet people who are adept at juggling. But dish-spinning is a whole new ball game -- the ability to conjure up one form of creative activity and set it in motion while starting up a second, third or more. Yet according to Milton Katselas, an American of Greek parentage based in Los Angeles who runs five careers in tandem, all it requires is desire, passion and intent.

Katselas, who agrees he bears a more than passing resemblance to Ernest Hemingway, is currently in Japan in part to attend the opening of his exhibition of monotypes at Yoshii Gallery in Ginza. He will also be producing lithographs at a factory in Yokohama and working on some ceramics at an artists' colony near Mount Fuji. "But mainly I'm here to promote my belief in and desire for world peace. Meeting as many people as possible is what it's all about."

We -- including the intermediary who had effected the introduction, and gallery owner Kazuhito Yoshii -- met at the Imperial Hotel, where Katselas was staying, and then walked to the gallery. (There are two exhibition spaces, across the road from one another.) En route we picked up Yoshii's brother Hiromi, who helps oversee their father's foundation, consisting of the colony and associated museum in Yamanashi (Musee Kioharu Shirakaba) and a second museum that opened last month in Hiroshima (Musee Onomichi Shirakaba).