I have set my table in the manner of a 10th century poet. Sei Shonagon was a highly educated woman of acerbic wit, lighting fast imagination and a keen eye for fashion and manners. She was famous for her diary, called “The Pillow Book.” 

Shonagon writes:
“One day a minister brought the Empress a bundle of notebooks. 
‘What shall we do with them?’ Her Majesty asked me. ‘The Emperor already has enough.’
‘Let me make them into a pillow,’ I said.
“Very well,” said her Majesty. “You may have them.” 
I now have a vast quantity of paper at my disposal and I set about filling the notebooks with odd facts, stories from the past, and all sorts of other things, often including the most trivial material.”

I have set my table with modern, ancient objects that might have delighted her:

• Wrinkled momi paper representing a flowing river 
• Unpainted wooden table
• Unpainted wooden cup filled with ink
• Bamboo straw with a paper umbrella
• Eating utensils of chopsticks and calligraphy brush resting on an old-fashioned comb and a coaster of black origami
• Tablecloth of mulberry paper with flowing hiragana and kanji script
• Tray of sandalwood Buddhist prayer beads and incense
• Paper boat carrying chiyogami wrapped clams 
• Shuttlecocks on a plate made of banana leaves
• A tiny tin of rouge  

Mague Calanche sent the above digital image. She was painting a shower curtain with these images. I thought it was quite interesting and decided to explore women's pubic hair as a topic.  I found a cool online vendor called Only Mannequins that sold inexpensive plastic torsos. The order via Amazon took much longer than expected: 10 days for piece to arrive. When it finally arrived, I add gesso to the body and because I had to wait so long to get started, I decided to just adhere rubber bands to the torso via gel medium. I wanted to give a sense of fleshiness. I also had perfect pubic hair material - curly hair wig, which I braided with a wire inserted. I am not 100% satisfied with this piece. I have ordered another torso and will lay down the rubber bands more flatly on the torso. I will spend longer than the few weeks Art Tag afforded me, to create a more fleshy torso. And I may decided to cut the flesh out from the torso so that it ends up being drapey, rather than solid. Feeling inspired!!!

"I've got a meeting in the ladies' room
I'll be back real soon
I've got a meeting in the ladies' room
I'll be back real soon
I've got a meeting in the ladies' room
I'll be back real soon"
 ~ lyrics from Klymaxx song
My first thought was to create an uber-feminine piece with frills and White Shoulders perfume but that wasn't what the ladies room really meant to me as a young person. It was a place where girls went to experiment with makeup, blue contact lenses and false eyelashes... a place where adult fantasies were played out through makeup, dress up, smoking and drinking. That was in the 1960's. Today, it's cos-play and cross-dressing. So who do I want to be? 
Pris, the basic pleasure model replicant in Blade Runner. She had superhuman strength and the punk-edge beauty that seduced the human male. I remember her leaping out darkness in a warehouse-like building - a flash of violence and beauty. 

The theme picked by Arc artists for the 2016 studio artists' exhibit is "Identity." This topic didn't resonate for me until the pressure of pulling together something for the show got me going. My selection is a combination of old and new work. There's even a piece I made for Art Tag. 

Work in progress for Crossing to Safety. 

My first piece is an experiment with solar technology. I created a baby with a doll mold: rubber doll wrapped with saran wrap & packing tape, then the shape cut out. The solar component are outdoors solar Christmas lights. There is a light charger that sits in the sun during the day...when the charger is covered, or at night, the lights light up. I stuffed the lights inside the doll and voila! This technology was easy to use.

I submitted this work to Visaural but it didn't get selected. Another work, weaker in my opinion, will be in the show instead. This quad-collage piece pairs up with Amy Winehouse's version of Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow? and is about young women's self-image. Japanese girls start altering their bodies in high school, as soon as they are allowed to dye their hair. It goes from changing hair color to eye surgery to nose surgery, cheek bone surgery, breast surgery...an on and on. I don't think it's about looking more Western, or even about looking for love. It's about becoming an idol, a person of adulation, an Anime heroine brought to life. We'll see what they turn into once the bloom is off the rose.
Made with paper, image transfer, false eyelashes and cutting blades.  

Unravel piece #3 (left) inspired by Rosemary's piece #2 (right)