There are so many beautiful flowers and plants to see in the gardens around our neighbourhood. The Gazania flower (at the top of this post) is the latest addition to our community garden plot.
Katami Designs Celebrates Two Years
My lovely friend Negar Katami celebrated the second anniversary of Katami Designs Gallery last week, and Boris and I were in attendance. It’s been slightly more than a year since the gallery started to carry my work, and I could not be happier with the care and attention they bring to my work.
You can see six new pieces in their current show, which will be up for the next six weeks. There are the four repetitive drawings I shared previously on the blog along with two small 3D paper cut pieces. I don’t have photos of those unfortunately, because I forgot to photograph them before delivering the pieces to the gallery. You’ll just have to see them in person.
Visit Katami Designs at 138 East Broadway near Main Street.
Blue Bits and Pretty Scraps
This week I’ve switched projects again and I’m back working on paper wearable number two, or is it three?! There are definitely three of these on the go, but I think I originally started this second, and the red one first. I still need to go back to that first paper wearable and get it sorted out because it’s been sitting there unfinished for a couple of weeks.
These blue pieces are similar to the red ones as they are flower shapes cut from circles, but on a slightly smaller scale that is driving me a little nuts. It has to be this way in order for the wearable idea to work. I have about eight more of the above pieces to cut and then I can arrange and assemble them. I can hardly wait.
This pile of triangle pieces are the offcuts from the flowers, and they are incredibly tiny, around an eighth of an inch or so. They are adorable in person.
Wearable Triangles Progress
Up until recently I got a little sidetracked by working on my website rather than in the studio. But last week I made some major progress on the triangle wearable. The photo above is of the first version from a few weeks ago, and the second photo (positioned in a spiral) was after I added more material. I kept looking at this second version and felt it needed even more.
I cut an additional eighty triangles (twenty of each colour), and added them to the piece. There are six strands measuring roughly sixteenish inches long. I improvised a makeshift clasp so I could try it on and get a sense for how it should hang on a body. It’s working very well, but I still feel it needs a bit more material added to it because I want it to be denser.
My next steps are figuring out how to make a proper clasp and attachment from wire. I’m hoping to get this and two other pieces finished in time for the beginning of July because photos are due then of the work.
Poppies Take Over in the Garden
Last year in mid-summer I planted a packet of poppy seeds in our community garden plot, and then in the fall I scattered an expired packet of what was supposed to be wildflower seeds in another section. All these many months later and the poppies have taken over the garden. The wildflowers mix only resulted in poppies, but maybe because they were the only seeds still viable.
The white with pink edge types are came from the seeds planted mid-summer, while every type and colour is coming up from the wildflower mix. Poppies are a favourite flower of mine, so I am constantly visiting the garden to see them. I am pleased to have poppies of my own after years of admiring them in other people’s gardens around the neighbourhood.
I am inspired and energized by my plant projects in the garden and at home. I never thought of myself as a plant person, but I sure am now.
Bloom: Ink Art Fundraiser at Nikkei Museum
Boris and I attended the Nikkei Museum fundraiser on Saturday evening, along with friends M.A. Tateishi, Arleigh Wood, and Christina Norberg. We four artists (not including Boris) had each donated a piece of art to their annual silent auction. I made a three dimensional arrangement of gel pen drawings in a shadowbox as my contribution (as pictured above).
Here is the piece hanging beside M.A.Tateishi’s spectacular painting in the auction show at the museum. Both of our pieces went home with lucky bidders.
I decided to bid on a piece myself, and came home with this fun screen print on wood panel by Yuriko Iga. I love the crazy colours, and all the patterns in the owl.
View the full gallery on Flickr of artwork donated to the fundraiser.
Work In Progress Website
You may notice changes and broken things around here over the next few weeks (hopefully less). Boris and I are currently messing around with my website as we merge the portfolio and blog. I’ve been running my portfolio on Behance Pro Site for the past couple of years, and as their service is about to be discontinued I am moving everything to WordPress and making changes to the template and structure. Fun times!
Things are a little bit broken in the meantime as I slowly get it all sorted out.
Featured in Uppercase Magazine
After many years of submitting my work to Uppercase Magazine I finally had something accepted into issue 29. It features lots of beautiful paper and book work, and there I am on page 60!
I’ve been hunting around the local shops in Vancouver on the look out for this issue, and was happy to get my hands on it at Opus Art Supplies yesterday. Learn more about the current issue here.
Wearable Triangles
I currently have three wearable paper art pieces on the go. As I got stalled on the first one, I start working on a second, and then a third. Eventually they’ll all come together as completed work. Pictured here are the bits and pieces of the third work in progress wearable for the neck.
I had to laugh when I started working on this, because clearly I can never just make one of anything. It always has to be multiples. Why make one triangle when I can make a whole pile of them?! Same goes for flowers, and anything else that comes to mind of recent work. The middle photo are the off-cut pieces of the triangles, and they will not be part of the finished piece.
I had a terrific studio visit on Friday with the two artists organizing the show these will be part of in September. It was fun to share these with others, and they gave me a few ideas on how to proceed.
Putting Sashiko Stitching To Work
At sewing bee yesterday evening I completed my first successful sashiko repair. I started it on Sunday evening and set it aside after getting frustrated. The hole is located on the inner thigh of my jeans, which made for an extremely awkward location to maneuver tiny stitches and a large needle. But I made it to the end, and now the jeans won’t end up with an even larger hole.
Towards the end of the workshop the other weekend, our teacher told us she keeps her sashiko supplies separate from her other sewing materials. I was inspired to finally invest in one of the metal pencil boxes made by Danica Studio, and sold at Welk’s (home of many irresistable products) as a container to hold mine. Look how cute it is! I want to stitch something all the time now.