Calligrapher Aoi Yamaguchi and dancer Mika Yanagihara perform at Fivepoints Arthouse

I asked Ben Needham to professionally photograph my piece for HIdden Cities. We decided to use the concrete floor of the Project Gallery for the background. The first shot was a neat  arrangement.  The lighting above created a wonderful shimmer on the waxed paper, which was unexpected. The second shot tells a better story, although the effect of the translucent shimmer is lost. 

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I've been thinking about the piece to submit to Hidden Cities, where we are challenged to depict our secret "city." I decided to explore the life of the "shoe people," whose invisible city I grew up in. These shoes are made of waxed paper and injet photos on vellum, a fragile, translucent depiction of simple flats.  I made as many as I could with the paper at hand and piled the shoes up in a heap.

This altered doll took several months to complete. I started with an idea to convert a typical blond-haired, blue-eyed doll into a Japanese character, complete with kimono. I found the perfect doppleganger at Thrift Town. I painted her red and she immediately transformed from a Scandinavian to a demon. Her pale hair was dyed black with ink. I blacked out her eyes but that looked too dead so added googly eyes. Her kimono is made of cheesecloth. I love working with gel medium because it's such a versatile glue.

I am late in mailing my first Absence/Presence Art Tag piece to my partner. It took a while for my mind to grasp what to make from this subject. The idea finally came to me Sunday morning at 3:00 am when I should have been fast asleep from the exhaustion of open studios.
I printed my favorite images on transparency and inserted them in a children's book. The book is painted with black gouache, which gives it a sooty texture.
I wrapped the book in tea-dyed cheesecloth and sent it off to my partner today.

This was my first open studio at Arc Studios & Gallery. I was relieved that I had even more visitors than my previous location.
Though I made few sales, I had many good conversations and the visitors took all of my Moo cards and most of the postcards.
Next time: mail postcards! Most of my collectors don't do Facebook or Twitter so the old-fashioned communication method works best for me. I got too busy to do any mailings this year.
Still, I was satisfied with the many new works I painted this year. I am planning to do more narrative pieces, which are gliimpsed behind the floating lanterns.

Rambling on about art, process, sharing it with the public.