Hiroshima/Kazakhstan International Friendship Group

Original Logo Design, 2010

Wedding Name Plates

This is the mock-up version of the name plates

for a Toronto-meets-Napanee wedding.

They wanted to go with nature, 

but without the country bumpkin feel.

"Save the Date" Goes Magnetic

Derek and Natsuko wanted something special,

so we made our own magnetic Save The Dates. 

It worked out really well, and got lots of great compliments.

Caribou

Personal Project, 2009

Menu Card Design

custom design, september 2010

a mug for your thoughts

(these were all made during the summer of 2010)

the voice of autumn

is heard

through the gap in my finances

身代の穴から知れる秋の聲

shindai no ana kara shireru aki no koe

Stamps Stamps Stamps!

a beer stein

sent from Australia

filled with hundreds

of stamps

that an old man

was selling at a market

it was part of his lifetime

collection of stamps

so pretty!

ideas?

so far, we've made postcards

Art Park on Hondori Street

 I was asked to make an English poster

  for an art event

since there are so many tourists around in August

Here t'is! The finished poster.

i'm also opening a booth at the art fair

yikes

gotta get my stuff in order

here's a mug

from the series i'm working on now

a series of white mugs

with coloured stripes

inspired by the double rainbow

ha so intense

August 6th Ceremony in Hiroshima

August 6th is Memorial Day in Hiroshima, to mourn and comfort the souls of victims of the Atomic Bomb. Every year, there is a memorial ceremony at Peace Park. This year, it will be attended by Ban Ki Moon, U.N. Secretary General, and for the first time, according to the Mainichi Daily News, representatives from the U.S., France, and Britain.

Hopefully this indicates a positive step towards the abolition of nuclear weapons. It definitely marks a win for the hibakusha, who have been fighting so hard for this the last half-century. 

New Stuff

this was made with an inlay technique

called zogan

this is my first try and it took a few hours

to carve and inlay the white clay

after a while, i had to rest

because my hands were shaky

and my eyes were dry

it's a technique that requires a lot of patience,

control, and maybe even a touch of madness

the pattern is carved into the leather-hard clay

using a bamboo or metal tool, 

and then the carved areas

are filled with soft clay of a contrasting colour

after the soft clay hardens, it is scraped

until it is flush with the surface

the technique was created by Tatsuzo Shimaoka

who studied under the master Shoji Hamada in Mashiko

Rainy Monday

A whirlwind:

People in the paper shop

Go mad

                                                                             

つむじ風紙屋の人の気が違い

Tsumujikaze kami-ya no hito no ki ga chigai

Ayumi Horie

I loved her work from the moment I saw it. There is something really special about Ayumi Horie's designs - they are so fresh, and playful, and the animals she uses on her pots seem to have their own tales to tell.

Her work has a poetry about it, that's honest, and unpretentious. Ayumi's mugs are the kind of mugs you look forward to using. You can see on her website how her work is not only functional, but becomes a real part of people's lives, they bring joy, they bring comfort. She says that her work revolves around this idea of comfort, both physical and psychological, and her celebration of the handmade has helped me to strengthen my own convictions about why I should make things. I hope to own my own Ayumi Horie mug someday, and I'm already thinking up the perfect Sunday morning.

So fittingly featuring the Nagoya-based, lo-fi pop band Lullatone, is Ayumi at work.

First Attempts

Now that all the weekend business is over, I can finally get to more posting. These are some photos of mine from a when I first started making pottery, as well as some other people's first attempts.

           

            Nate working on a mug

   

              Self-Portrait?

        

          my first bowls before firing, the owl is painted with enogu,

       the deer is carved into underglaze

        

       Yasue's art therapy class

      

Thought this was clever when I made it...

it's kind of hard to use and really heavy. 

Sometimes it's a peanut bowl.

      

Another face from Yasue's art therapy class

      

Jen's first mug pair, using coloured clay.
She calls them her "mosquito bite" series.

The Soba Fields

Making Something Out of Nothing

I went to a show recently at the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo running on the theme, "Can there be art?" The show featured the art of 20 artists representing the future of art in Japan. The idea of re-using, re-cycling, and transforming commercial waste was a big theme, and were prominent in two of my favourite pieces.

The artist is Yuken Teruya, and he has transformed throwaway bags, like fast food bags, and shopping bags, into stunning paper trees.

Weddings, Weddings

So, I've got a lot of work to do this weekend. Photo/picture ideas for Yasue's friend's new restaurant that's opening in ---yikes --- less than a week (luckily I have Sophie as my partner in crime!), pots for my cousin's wedding, and an invitation for the wedding of some dear friends back home. It's good to be busy. I've had a bit of a design block working on the invitation, so I might just scrap it and start all over again... here's to a fresh start.

This world is a world of love;

Even mice walk about

With love letters in their mouths.

戀の世や鼠も文を持ちありき

Koi no yo ya   nezumi mo fumi o mochi-ariki

Souvenirs from the Advertising Museum in Tokyo ADMT

I finally made it to the ADMT, after two failed attempts (one over New Years - all gov't buildings were closed, and the other, just got distracted by everything else). It was free to get in, and I got a chance to see loads of old Japanese ad designs. They linked the evolution of design to what was happening in Japan, so it was really cool --- you could trace their lifestyles at the time, by checking out what kind of products that were on the market.

Maraid has a great collection from her grandfather posted on flickr.

Japan was making a lot of matchboxes for export at the time, so every matchbox had a story. I believe the matchboxes I've posted are from the early Showa era, many were done by lithograph. Here are some photos taken from the lovely poster I got from the museum shop.

Tokyo Mori Building Tower

Pots in Action!

 sugar pot sprouting fawn

 yasue's lemon leaf tea cup

early tea cup by emma-li

mmm... brownies

 

experimenting with glazes