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

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.

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.

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.

This is Art Island II

The door-keeper

Yawns

Like the howling of a dog

This is Art Island

This is the place to go when you're all templed out. Or when you've been living in the city and you need to see coasts and trees and smell green. Or you could just take the leap and go straight there. We went to Naoshima last month for post-spring vacation vacation; it's about a two-and-a-half hour trip in all: Hiroshima to Okayama, Okayama to Uno, Uno Port to Naoshima. Done. What's better than an island? An art island. Yes.

We stayed at the Mongolian-style yurts at Tsutsuji-so Lodge, relaxing and unwinding indeed.
http://www.naoshima.net/en/accommodations/index.html

Our Yurt

Good Times Past, Good Times To Come

Yayoi Kusama's Yellow Pumpkin

Skipping Stones