magnetic glimpse- enoshima

magnetic glimpse- enoshima, originally uploaded by raquelmonkey.

I have been spending the day editing out cars and people from the background video for a new work that I am going to show at Aichi Triennale. Watching all those cars disappear made me wonder whether I really should have been adding them in..

This is the first time I have blogged a video over from flickr it seems to have compressed a bit- I just tried to view it in full screen and that was better. click here to view at flickr

Any helpful advice bloggers? Lucas?

Install in Toyko Stories

Just got some install shots off TWS- the table got nicely stamped over time.

The top detail photo is of my Fuji siting at Oi Yacho Koen.

re-excitment

When I got back from Brisbane a package had arrived from Tokyo with the first six stamps I have made in the series- when I look at them them now, some of them I am happy with and some I think need a little tweaking.

As an aside the installation of the Asia collection at QAG is absolutely fantastic at the moment. Great Ai Wei Wei pieces rubbing up against ancient Chinese and Japanese pottery, an exquisite Japanese screen with large areas of gold leaf clouds with green pines framing a shinto shrine, and mostly pleasingly: turn of the century woodcuts, although non of Fuji. I did however buy a couple of books in the shop: the Hokusai you see above and a small book of meisen kimono patterns in 50's and 60's.

Reading the Hokusai and finishing the work I install at Uplands and Milani, has me excitedly looking forward to going back to Japan! hurrah! - but not long to go arh!

Stillness and movement- Sarah's soles

Bought at ABC Mart in Tokyo, Sarah's shoes are the largest men's size. She said a shop assistant ran from the Shinjuku store she was in, a couple of blocks and back to bring her the right size. I love the concentric circles round the sun.

The Great Wave off Kanagawa 神奈川沖浪裏 Kanagawa-oki nami-ura, certainly the most famous of Hokusai 36 views. I read somewhere that it's beauty is based on the balance of the movement of the waves against the stillness of Fuji. It's funny but I can't ever remember seeing Mt Fuji in the work until I saw in in Tokyo. Although this might be because I haven't really been much of a Nipponofile until going there and certainly wasn't interested in Fuji. I like the literal translation of the title suggested at Wikipedia, it seems to fit the image of Sarah's shoe well. "Off Kanagawa, the back (or underside) of a wave."

Enoshima (Kanagawa) waves where pretty low the times I was there but the water was still full of full body wet suited surfers. They where on sitting on their submerged boards, looking out to sea. From a distance I though they where flocks of cormorants.

Update:

After a very exciting weekend at the 7th printmaking symposium I got onto the blog printeresting, thanks to the beautiful Rebecca Mayo, they also have a little story about the Great Wave shoes.