My Taiyaki Dreams Come True

August 26, 2016

The Richmond Night Market made me fall in love with fish shaped waffles (aka Taiyaki) filled with red bean paste, and for many years I’ve wanted a pan to make them at home. I had no clue where to buy one until my friend Barb acquired a pan a few years ago at Uwajimaya in Seattle. I’ve tried there myself on the last few visits to Seattle, but they’re always out of pans.

Thanks to a suggestion from a friend to try Amazon coinciding with a gift card from my sister as a birthday present, I finally have a taiyaki pan of my own. I kind of forgot Amazon has everything, no matter how obscure.

It arrived last week and I put it to use immediately. We live near a Japanese grocery, and I was delighted to discover you can buy ready-made packages of sweetened red bean paste there. I was happy to skip the process of making the paste because it involves a pressure cooker, and we don’t have one. We followed this recipe to make the taiyaki batter.

These are the first few Boris and I created as a team. They made for an excellent end of day snack. I can’t wait to make more!

I love Taiyaki.

Art Takes Over with The Vancouver Mural Festival

August 22, 2016

Oh Vancouver Mural Festival, how much do I love you? SO MUCH! Because of you the visual art scene in Vancouver has been made visible, and in the process our street art scene has levelled up about 500% in the few short weeks since all this mural painting has begun. These are just some of the 35+ new murals in the Mount Pleasant neighbourhood. Check out the map to find all of the locations.

The official launch of the festival happened this past Saturday, and I happily wandered the streets trying to take it all in. It was such a good vibe with so many people out to see the art. Boris and I ran into many friends and acquaintances, and every single person was excited and inspired by the festival.

Scott Sueme

We would be a very different city if more buildings looked like this brilliant abstract colour composition painted by Scott Sueme. He transformed an eye sore into something I now can’t take my eyes off of.

iHeart

Shannon Elliott

Tim Mack

Julia Iredale

Paige Bowman

Cody Lecoy

Ola Volo

Spencer Keeton Cunningham

Ilya Viryachev

Ola Volo & iHeart

Nomi Chi

I did not manage to see all the new murals on Saturday, but everything is supposed to be up for at least the next two years. With the success of the inaugural mural festival, I’m imagining what Vancouver could look like a few years from now when it has happened multiple times. It will be amazing!

Jill Pilon at Gibsons Public Art Gallery

August 19, 2016

I took the day off this past Monday to do a day trip to Gibsons on the Sunshine Coast with artist friends, Mary Anne Tateishi and Vanessa Lam. We went specifically to see a solo show of work by Jill Pilon at the Gibsons Public Art Gallery, but also fit in a few other things. I love it when an art road trip comes together!

Jill’s work is beautiful and full of intriguing details that require closer observation. My favourite pieces were the ones with stripes and strong geometric lines, but I was also drawn into ones with a subtler colour palette and mark making details of scribbled writing partially revealed under layers of paint.

It’s an inspiring show, but it comes to an end this Sunday. If you happen to be on the Sunshine Coast this weekend drop into the gallery to see it.

Juxtapoz x Superflat Exhibition

August 14, 2016

The day after visiting the Seattle Art Fair last weekend I took Boris with me to see the Juxtapoz X Superflat show at Pivot Art + Culture. It was in the South Lake Union neighbourhood, which is an area of Seattle I hadn’t previously explored, and it seemed to be filled with cool art venues, and restaurants.

Elizabeth Higgins O’Connor

Kim Jung Gi

James Jean

I didn’t love this show but I badly wanted to see it because it included work by James Jean, one of my favourite artists. I’ve never seen his work in person before, only online, and it’s an important thing to do when you like someone’s work. It’s absolutely not the same seeing things on the internet. Now I want to see an entire show of his work, but I doubt that will ever happen in Vancouver.

Katsuya Terada

Making Polymer Clay Beads

August 12, 2016

I was recently inspired by people I follow on Instagram to try making polymer clay beads. I worked with the clay many years ago at a workshop taught by Laurie Mika at ArtFest, but the end project was to make a portable shadowbox shrine. I’d never considered making beads before, and now I want to make them all the time.

Theses are two of the necklaces I have made to date after three sessions of bead making. I hosted an evening with friends earlier this week, and the necklace below was put together from beads I made that night. I love playing with the colours, patterns, and shapes to make these jumbled strands of beads. I am so pleased to wear my own work around my neck.

I am inspired by these small making projects I’ve been working on over the summer. The necklaces along with my stitching project means I have lovely things to wear made by my own hand. That is the best part!

Inspiration: Louise Despont Draws Deep

August 11, 2016

My friend Snikitiki shared this wonderful video with me on Twitter yesterday, of artist Louise Despont in her studio. I love how she talks about her work because it reminds me of how I feel about my own.

Visit her website to see more work.

Scenes from the 2016 Seattle Art Fair

August 10, 2016

Boris and I did a short trip to Seattle over the weekend to visit friends, but I also timed it to coincide with the Seattle Art Fair. This was my first experience attending a large art fair like this, and it was AMAZING! There was so much to see that my brain almost overloaded in the first five minutes. I started out rushing through because I was SO EXCITED, but then calmed myself down and took it at a slower pace.

I did not take as many photos as I’d wanted because I didn’t trust my battery to hold out for the few hours I was going to wandering around. So this is a small selection of pieces of art I liked or found interesting. There is way more I wish I could have photographed to share.

Skylar Fein

Paul Villinski

Keun Young Park

Christian Maychak

Beth Cavener

(Did not get the artist for this one.)

Markus Linnenbrink

Phil Shaw

Kymia Nawabi

Christopher David White

Timothy Cummings

Elisheva Biernoff

Nancy Mintz

Kate MacDowell

Visiting the Seattle Art Fair was so inspiring but also humbling. It was a good reminder that I need to level up the quality and quantity of my work if I ever hope to be included in an event like that. I don’t feel my work is currently good enough, but I could be if I work harder.

Big Print Project in Chinatown

August 3, 2016

Among the many fun things Boris and I did on the weekend was to visit the Big Print Project happening in the courtyard of Dr. Sun Yat Sen Garden. It’s an event to highlight printmaking on a large scale, with 4′ x 8′ woodblocks carved by professional artists, and the work printed by a steamroller. Yes, you read that right.

We dropped by on Sunday morning in time to see the inking and printing process for the woodblock carved by my friend, Connie Sabo. It was a group effort to get the entire thing properly saturated with ink. I shot the video below during the first plate inking.

A video posted by Paper artist (@rachael_ashe) on Jul 31, 2016 at 11:06am PDT

The handy dandy steamroller waiting to make big prints.

Laying down the first piece of fabric for printing. There were several layers of cloth and a piece of wood added for the roller to go over.

Pulling back the first piece of cloth printed with the steamroller. It looks terrific

It was a crowd pleasing event, and a spectacular introduction for people not familiar with printmaking.

There is an exhibit of the large prints later in the month at the Chinese Cultural Centre Museum in Chinatown, August 19th to 21st, 10am to 5:30pm.

Work In Progress: Re-Working an old paper cut piece

August 1, 2016

I think I initially created this piece of work two years ago, and I’ve never been completely satisfied with it. I made it with two separate cut layers, and it didn’t quite work. I decided it was time to take it apart and do something more to it. I drew a third concentric circle (that my compass was almost not large enough to handle) and started cutting it more. You can see the original version of this on Flickr, photographed with the layers flat.

I always photograph pieces as I go along because it helps me realize how quickly I can work. I pushed myself at the end of last week to make it to the half-way point with the third circle.

Today I pushed myself to finish off the remaining second half, and I managed to do it. Pictured here is the point I reached just before taking a lunch break. It feels good to have made this piece larger. I think it makes it stronger than the original layered version.

I took a short Hyperlapse video of me working on this towards the end. It’s another interesting way to record and reflect on my process and progress.

A video posted by Paper artist (@rachael_ashe) on Aug 1, 2016 at 4:47pm PDT

Vancouver Mural Festival

July 27, 2016

The other evening I took took Boris to see the murals in progress at Maker Labs. The entire place is getting painted by a large group of artists collaborating in pairs on individual murals over different sections of the building. The project is part of the Vancouver Mural Festival, which kicked off this summer and will oversee the creation of 35 + new murals around East Vancouver. I think there were a total of seven in progress at the time of our visit, and these are four of them.

Work in progress by Alison Woodward and Graeme McCormack.

Painted by Mandy Tsung and Russell Alton

Work in progress by Nomadic Alternatives.

(I need to find out the artists painting this one)

The Maker Labs project will be finished on Friday, so this weekend will be an excellent time to drop by to see them. Visit the Vancouver Mural Festival website for more details about their event.

Canvas to the Imagination

Rachael Ashe – Art | Craft | Life