Final images from de Young Residency

I finally have images of all the pieces I created for my de Young Residency. I will add the dimensions later. Just wanted to post them all together as I don't have them up on my website yet.

Video shown in the Kimball Gallery during the residency is at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2h7BKRVB8CM/

de Young Museum Artist Reception

Here are a few pictures taken by Lori Paladino for my artist reception at the de Young. Sue Kwon was one of the announcers.

Visitor Participatory Project at de Young

Here are images of the visitor participatory project created by visitors to my de Young Museum artist residency. Children and adults created round forms with floral wire and papered them with recycled materials from the museum and from my collection of recycled materials.

Sky Viewing Tapestry (in progress)

Photo Shoot of three tapestries

Today George Young photographed a few more of the completed tapestries. Below are the images. Each has elements that come off as hats or hair ornaments.



























This piece above, Butterfly Papa Hu, is inspired by a Japanese print in the de Young Museum textile collection as well as by the Chinese and Japanese fireworks of my childhood memories. My Dad called these fireworks by the Hawaiian pidgin name, "Papa Hu". My favorite were the fireworks that reminded me of exploding flowers. I tried to capture that exploding flower imagery here. The paper butterflies behind the brown netting are all recycled bit of postcards and print material from the de Young Museums recycling bins. The brown netting is recycled netting donated by Walker Bag of San Francisco before they moved to their new warehouse location.























This piece above, Fortune, is inspired by the intersection of histories of Japanese American families, the Japaense Tea Garden of Golden Gate Park and the creation of the Fortune cookie.
The below piece is inspired by silk riots in London and by a tapestry in the de Young Museum collection. The silk strips in the back represent the slashing of imported silks by frustrated textile workers and blade shapes are echoed in the form of the silk fragments. I have earlier postings on all these pieces.

Photo Shoot of Hats from tapestries

Last Friday I had a photo shoot of a few of the hats that come off of the tapestries. Stacie Tamaki was my lovely model. Armando Sarabia created the amazing hair style and make up. George R. Young was my fantastic photographer. The below two images are of a Ginkgo Leaf hat that come off of the Ginkgo Tapestry.


























The below Hat comes off of the "Ties that Bind Tapestry"

Butterfly Tapestry

Here are in progress images of my butterfly tapestry. There are two hair ornaments that come off of this one. The center of the wire flowers are mini shoyu bottle caps. The paper butterflies are recycled postcard and print materials from the de Young Museum. The butterfly pattern is inspired by a Japanese textile in their online image collection.


























































































Cardboard sketch and the beginning of wire work.




















Mesh being added. This mesh is remnant mesh from Walker Bag of San Francisco.

























































Below, one of two large hair ornaments that come off of the tapestry.

Spitalfields inspired tapestry

I have started creating my second tapestry for my de Young residency show. Here are some images. This piece is inspired by an English silk weaving in the de Young Museum collection. The piece was created in the silk weaving district of Spitalfields which has a rich history in textile production and drew in people from diverse cultures to work this trade. This district felt much of the growing pains of the Industrial Revolution. French Huguenots escaping persecution in France settled here and brought their silk production skills. Later on lower paid Irish workers came and clashed with their supervising French tradesmen. Riots occurred as silk began to be exported from China and India and the price and demand for home spun silk declined. Angry works would roam about in bands and slash the garments of women wearing imported fabrics. There will be silk fragments dangling in the back to represent this violence.

In this piece I am teasing out elements of the tapestry and creating a new pattern with them. I want to visually explore how emphasizing certain exiting elements can create a new tone and rhythm. This altering of the pattern reflects the changes in the social texture of the Spitalfields district by new peoples and shifting economic winds. I will be using recycled materials that echo the cultural mix that impacted this district: English and Irish tea bags, Chinese wrappers, French wrappers, and Chinese and Indian silks.

This is where I am with this piece now. It will be viewable from both sides.




















































Above is the original sketch and the reference fabric .I have changed the color scheme a bit.
Below are some images of the early stages of building this piece. All my cardboard was donated to me by Chain Reaction Bicycle Shop in Los Altos. Thanks Chain Reaction!





























I created a tile in Illustrator from a section of Spitalfields tapestry in the de Young Museum's collection. I move this about on the cardboard to try to created an even pattern.















Here I have started to cover the sections in wrappers. These wrappers are the under layer. They will be covered in different colored papers.
















Below is a leaf motif I abstracted from the Spitalfields tapestry. I created this in Illustrator, printed it out and used it as a template to build these elements.



















Here are the leaf elements. They are covered in Chinese food wrappers, de Young Museum entry ticket stubs, English tea bag wrappers and scrap silk from Colleen Quen.



















Below is a flower motif pulled and abstracted from the Spitalfields tapestry.




















Below is the wire form of the flower. I will be making three of these to go on the tapestry.
















Here is the flower papered in the first layer of wrappers and beginning layer of silk.
















Here is the flower covered in silk and fragments of French candy wrappers.















Here is the back side of the completed flower. I used scarps of gold paper I had left over from another project.