Boston Children's Hospital Exhibit

A few weeks ago I was contacted by Betty Bothereau of L'Attitude Gallery in Boston who coordinates art installations for various hospitals. Boston Children's Hospital would like to showcase a collection of my sculptural shoes and hats. I just mailed off the last set of 4 hats to accompany the 5 shoes and 1 hat I send a few weeks ago. I look forward to seeing what the installation looks like. There is nothing more gratifying than showing in a hospital.
Here are a few images of the pieces which will be in the installation.

Below: photo by Lori Paladino and garments by Colleen Quen. Hats came off of tapestries at an artist residency I had at the de Young Museum. The image below shows the tapestry the ginkgo leaf hats were a part of.
Below:
Fortune: mixed media tapestry created for de Young Museum Artist in Residence. The two floral/obi elements remove from the tapestry and are hats. The bottom left hat was sent for the Boston Children's show.
Photo: George R. Young

This piece is inspired by the intersecting histories of Japanese American Internment experiences, the Japanese Tea Garden of Golden Gate Park and the creation of the Fortune cookie.

Dimensions: 55" x 56" x 10"
Below: Plantation Tabi
Below: 1942 Shoe.

Crane Sculpture Sketches

Today I worked up a sketch for a client of L'attitude Gallery in Boston. The client wishes to see a study with two cranes base on the construction style of the completed Crane Maiden sculpture below. It is really wonderful to see the Japanese cranes mating dance. I am not sure of the scale that the client is thinking of but I know this is for a vacation home in Florida.








































Above is the Crane Maiden piece. This was originally created for The Sonoma Valley Museum of Art and most recently exhibited at the de Young Museum in December.
More info here: http://www.okadadesign.com/abstract_crane_maiden.html

Neuron Kimono Completed

I completed the Neuron Kimono yesterday and had it photographed professionally today. My photographer for my sculptures is George Young in Palo Alto. I am so lucky to be able to document my work with such a great photographer. I love how he lights my sculptures and having my work photographed professional always feels like the last step in completing a piece for me. Now I am ready to prepare it for shipping out to L'Attitude Gallery.

I will be creating the box to ship the piece in this week. I need to construct the boxes for shipping as well as create assembly instructions; the piece breaks apart in half and the large blue neuron elements are snapped on with clothing snaps. The final dimensions of the piece are 3'11" wide x 5'8" tall (including pole) x 3.5" deep. Media: magnet wire, silk, waste canvas, Japanese and Chinese food wrappers, Japanese manga comics, kozo paper, plastic sushi grass, plastic sushi garnish flowers, pearls, costume jewelery, and produce netting. I try to use as much recycled materials as possible.

I am much happier with the wire twisting on this piece than on my past works. In the past I have used manual electrician wire twisters to twist my long lengths of wire. For this piece, I used a drill to twist the wire and it looks so much more consistent. This was suggested to me by an art critique group I am in. I cannot emphasis enough how beneficial it is to be in a critique group. It really has helped me focus on pushing my art to a more refined construction.

Photo by George R. Young























Detail image:

Final Touches to Neuron Kimono

Yesterday and today I am working on final touches to the kimono for pediatric neurological center in Boston. I added the large yellow neurons which really help the composition, I think. They are covered in wrappers and then with yellow cotton fabric. They are attached to the sculpture with fishing line and wire.




















The piece is starting to look like the original sketch. I did make some modifications such as enlarging the blue neurons in the center sweep and I reduced the size of the orange right hand curved area.

















I attached the yellow fabric with YES glue. Below are the different glues and glazes I use.















Next, I am adding the "Bling" of bits of recycled jewelry donated to me by my son's school's principal, Vivian Franklin. Last year she gave me a plastic tub filled with her mothers jewelery. I love using objects that have had a past life.














Here is a detail of the jewelry added.




















I have added sushi grass to the green trim area along with scraps of beautiful sheer silk from Colleen Quen Couture. She graciously gave me some of her remnant fabrics.
















Emily is enjoying experimenting with the materials in my studio. She has also been helping me tear and cut up the wrappers and manga that I add to the sculpture.

Produce netting and completing Neuron elements

Today I completed most of the final neuron elements (I have three large yellow ones to create tonight). Here is Emily standing in front of the piece. The large blue neurons are still not attached. When the piece is installed it will hang from a bamboo pole and be in a large plexiglass box. I will also have to include assembly instructions as the piece splits in half and some of the big blue neurons will be attached after assembly.




















Below are images of the blue produce netting stitched on to add body and texture to the sleeve areas. I can't remember what the netting came from. I think it was a big durian bag. I had cut it up into small pieces for a workshop I did at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco. I liked working with the smaller pieces for this sculpture as they created faint geometric shapes.