Hiroshima Art Exhibition

There’s nothing like a good deadline in the form of an art exhibition to motivate and inspire! Hiroshima’s Charity Art Bonanza provided just that… an exhibition featuring work from 8 different artists, including painting, photography, fashion and embroidery. The event was an incredible success, raising just over 100 000 yen for “Brighter than Tomorrow”, a charity run by Estelle Hebert, which supports the victims of the March 11 disaster in the fishing town of Funakoshi in Miyagi Prefecture, Japan. Sarah, Harriet, Dave and Jackie did an amazing job organising, and thanks to everyone that popped in for support. I couldn’t have asked for a better afternoon in the city: chatting, sipping wine and appreciating unexpected talents.
Check out my portfolio to read more about the three dresses I exhibited as part of a range called “When I grow up”. In hopes of not sounding too pretentious, I did attach personal meaning to each garment, and hope it proves that fashion can also be a personally symbolic form of art. Let me know what you think of the range! xoxo 

Chichu Art Museum

Naoshima island (off Okayama Prefecture, Japan) manages to maintain its quaint Japanese rural town feel, but contrasts it so well with the modern art that’s scattered all over the island.
Featuring artworks and architecture by Claude Monet, Walter De Maria, James Turrel and Tadao Ando, Chichu Art Museum is one such modern scattering. I must admit, I’m a little embarrassed of my post museum visit reaction. After viewing paintings by Claude Monet, I had similar feelings to that of having just met a celebrity. I realized I’ve never seen famous works of art up close and personal before. And now I’m hooked! The pure size of the paintings was kind of mesmerizing.
The museum is best described by Soichiro Fukutake, the director of Chichu Art Museum and President of Naoshima Fukutake Art Museum Foundation. In the Chichu handbook I purchased, he states:
As suggested by its name, chichu (underground), this museum is built below a slightly elevated hill that was once developed as a saltpan facing the Seto Inland Sea. Without destroying the beautiful natural scenery of the Seto Inland and seeking to create a site for dialogues of the mind, this museum is an expression of my belief that “art must exist amid nature.”
Claude Monet is an artist who expressed himself while continually confronting nature as he created artworks. Walter De Maria and James Turrel are influenced in some way by Monet’s attitude towards nature and having metaphorically continued to express visions of the universe using the earth as a canvas. Likewise, Tadao Ando, an architect who questions the relationship between the environment and architecture, activates the nature of the Seto Inland Sea. It is my intension that the artworks by these four people provide visitors with an opportunity to dialogue with nature and one’s mind.
We weren’t allowed to take photographs inside the museum, so I’ll just share a few pictures from the Chichu Handbook. The photographers are Naoya Hatakeyama, Takeo Shimizu and Tetsuya Yamamoto. 
Claude Monet
Walter De Maria
James Turrel
Tadao Ando

 

High School Art in Japan

The Senior High School I teach English at, recently held an art exhibition at their annual school festival. After weeks of joining the after school art club I was beginning to think it was more of a chatting club with an art problem, but somehow the students seemed to whip these gems out just before the exhibition. Now I feel somewhat like a cheesy, proud mom showing off their work like this.