Energy

Have I written about energy already?

It's something I think about a lot with taiko, how energy flows from person to person in a performance, how it moves through your body from your center to fingertips.  How to move that energy.  

But it seems so finite lately - I only have so much energy to give and after that there is no more.  I'm disappointed to see that my last blog post was in November.  Pushing out creative energy has been difficult as of late.  Its interesting because I work in the arts, yet the way your creative energy moves in such a dynamic organization is not always up to you.  Sometimes it pools over here or there and waits, sometimes it gets pushed out when not ready.  That is not anyone's fault, it just is.

Drawings from the last few months are about energy.  Looking at it sitting there, or draining away.

Creative Energy

I stumbled across this article on the internet, about the paradoxical traits of creative people.  I very much relate to these traits, especially this one:

Creative people have a great deal of physical energy, but they're also often quiet and at rest.

In the flurry of busyness leading up to a huge concert this weekend, I find myself working on cards.  I enjoy looking at the stamps as mini artworks and thinking about their journey on a letter, from Japan to someone here.  From that person who carefully kept them and gave them to me, and from me to someone else buying the cards to yet another person.  They may take one short look and toss in the recycling or keep it in a box, who knows?  That part doesn't bother me.  I just like the idea of the creative energy that is released into the universe.

Wednesday Night Doodle

Encyclopedia of Inner Life

I'm slowly filling the pages of my sketchbook for The Sketchbook Project.  This is the second time I've done this project.  The first time I found myself rushing at the very last minute to put stuff down and not think about whether it was "good" or "bad."  This time I'm thinking about it a little differently, as a place where I can turn off my brain and let the materials go to work.   And find out what I think is "good." 

I just finished page 4.  I have 26 pages to go...

I'm addicted to Work of Art, season 2 (a reality art show).  The artist Sucklord just said this, which I think I can relate to:

"I spent my whole life developing myself to being who I am, and now at this stage of the game to push myself into directions that I wouldn't otherwise go into was interesting, but at the end of the day confirm for me that the voice that I have is the voice that I should continue with."

I don't know if I can say the same for myself and taiko, but that's what makes taiko special for me - in a different way from art.

Art Exchange 2

 I got a package in the mail yesterday.  It was from Megan - our art exchange!  She sent back my original doodle and scraps of paper.  (I added the stripe before remember to take a photo.)

Going to send this back.  So I just finished step 3 (Yurika - Megan - Yurika).

In other news, I just received my sketchbook for The Sketchbook Project 2012!  I have until January to fill it up and send it back where it will become part of a traveling exhibit of hundreds of other such sketchbooks.  Better get to work.

Art Exchange

My creative friend Megan gave me some scraps to make something out of.  I gave her a doodle and paper.  It's the eve of Taiko Conference and my brain is full from planning...  I just made this.  I wonder what she made.  We trade this weekend.  Then we trade again and again.  I love this idea.

I'm talking on a panel discussion called "Tradition and Innovation:  Keeping the Faith, Exploring New Worlds."  More on that later...

And this is just something I saw in Mendocino and really liked.

A moment for art

These moments are precious.  To make, just because.

I cut off the leaves to press.

And wanted the twig to look less lonely.

Colour

This pencil drawing has been staring me for weeks saying, "Finish me!"  But I didn't feel like it.  The technical patience required in using graphite doesn't appeal to my need for instant gratification or need for kinesthetic pleasure in creating.

But I finally dutifully got back to work.  While listening to random music popping up on my iTunes, I came across the song, Ao no Yukue (The Blue Beyond) by Kodo.  Along with taiko, it features Yoko Fujimoto singing and steel drums.  A fantastic song!

Anyway, it made me think about different aspects of music and how I see them in my mind.  For example, pure rhythm is like a line drawing to me.  Taiko can sometimes be this.  Add dynamics (soft and loud parts), and you have gradients and shadows.  Add different instruments and timbres and suddenly there's colour. I decided I wanted to have that growing out of this monochromatic plant thing I have going.

I'm curious to see what I'll do with it next.  I never really know how things will turn out.

Pencils Teach Patience

 

This is a drawing I've been working on for a while.  Sometimes, I need to doodle and I tend to doodle with the same motifs but this time I decided to flesh it out with graphite.  Not with pen and ink and watercolour pencils as I usually do.  This is taking much more time...

As an artist, I'm discovering that my patience is short - I like the instant gratification of completing cards.  Even though I make a lot of them, I get a boost of satisfaction after each one is finished, and that does not take as long as working on something like this. 

I'll post again when I finish...

Japanese Paper - An Obsession

I wish I had photos of the little boxes I used to make when I was going through my angsty teenage years.  I used to make dozens of little jewelry box-sized boxes covered with Japanese paper - starting each one from a piece of cardboard, painstakingly measuring them to make sure the top would fit over the bottom.  For what purpose, I couldn't tell you now.  I just enjoyed it. 

I think this is how my love affair with washi paper began...

Nowadays, I'm lucky enough to live in a city that has stores with a pretty wide selection of papers to choose from.  Nevertheless, I don't spend a lot of time in them.  Because of my obsession, I can't bare to throw any scraps away so they get cut down from big projects like the book-binding and decoupage, down to card fronts, then to strips and dots and other bits.

My friends laugh at how I have to sort all the little scraps...

But they are all like jewels to me...

And can be used in lots other of projects.

Grains of Creativity

 I watched the series "Craft in America" from Netflix.  Brilliant!  Watch it.  I wish I remembered which artist said this, but I scribbled this down:

"Our human species is very amazing.  We have these two potentials between creating and destruction.  If all creative people stopped making art, I really think we'd perish as a species.  I'm not going to make the ear that saves the world, I'm not going to make the teapot that saves the world.  But you know, Ghandi said, 'You drop enough grains into the mightiest machine - grains of sand - and you'll stop that machine.'  So I figured, ok.  This is my contribution to man's collective creativity."

My house is full of tiny grains of creativity.

I also like this:

"Develop an infallible technique.  And then place yourself at the mercy of inspiration."

Sustaining a Life as an Artist

I'm trying to figure out how to write this blogpost about a panel I went to last weekend.  You could read about it on my writer-friend Nicole's blog.  She was the who told me about it. 

It was at the CIIS (California Institute of Integral Studies) in San Francisco.  The panel included artists, writers and dancers discussing "Sustaining a Life as an Artist," which has been on my mind a lot as I struggle to make ends meet this year.  I also discovered a program there called Creative Inquiry, Interdisciplinary Studies.  Wow!  A program designed for artists who have more than one focus - dancer/writer, actor/sculptor, taiko player/artist?

I like to start my blogs with a picture, my picture usually drives the words.  But here I have a jumbled mess of ideas all intersecting and spinning off in different directions. 

One thing stood out.  I wish I could remember who said this:

"What would it mean if we could all let go of the notion of 'If only we all did ..." - then maybe we would truly embracing diversity."

This was the first time I had heard people talking about artists living hybrid lives ("more often than not, the artist assumes multiple roles as she builds a life for herself...").  The past years I've been struggling so hard to define myself, narrow it down, find the words to say exactly what it is that I do.  But what became clear is that what I "do" is ART, both through taiko and visual art.  And that could be enough definition for me.  

Someone else said this:  "Language can be both a barrier, or a swinging door to direct experience." What I loved about this day, being surrounded by artists, is that I could see how the language being exchanged in the room was the swinging door to possibility and ideas...  And not necessarily a constant struggle to define everything for fear of being misunderstood/feeling of progress/efficiency - which is so much of my regular life.

Growing Up

Thursday mornings are precious now.  They are art production days.  If I don't designate this time, my free hours have a tendency to become art incubation/research/materials management/marketing time.  Which is all necessary too, but I need to produce.  No more just talk about it.  Part of the creative process is creating!

I've had the parts of this piece floating around for ages...  It's funny how the pieces just make themselves, if you let them.  At first it the strings were "hanging" in my mind, but then I stepped around to the other side and saw that they were "growing."  After that I just knew what to do.

Yes, that's me taking the photo in the glass.  Growing up.  Or at least thinking about it.

Never stop creating...

...even when you're too tired to think. Your brain will keep on working on it, and file the ideas away somewhere...

"Go deep into something..."

"Go deep into something." is what Shoji Kameda of On Ensemble said at Stanford last year. (Do you remember this, Shoji?) It was a forum on composition at the Collegiate Taiko Invitational with Roy Hirabayashi, Kenny Endo and Shoji. I was taking scratchy notes on the back of a handout. I keep this nearby so I can look at it from time to time - I love it.

These were Shoji's Guidelines for Composing:

1. Start with where you are, and with what you have. ("You may have great music in you, but it's underneath a bunch of crud.")

2. Be a sponge.

3. Never stop improving.

4. Don't get precious about your work or art form.

5. Find your voice. Be inspired by, not a derivative of. ("Is this musical idea really working, or is it just me showing off?")



I think all these things apply to creating art too.

I opened up my sketchbook this afternoon, stared at the blank pages wondering about the theme I'm supposed to follow... This is what came out. I'm not being precious. And I am trying to get at what's under all the crud.





My Canvas Project submission is now showing at the Atlanta Airport. It's the green one in the right frame - top row, second from the right. It's so small, but it's me showing. I don't do that, ever. Amongst cool art from all over the world. So different and interesting.

The Sketchbook Project

I just got back from Taiko Conference in LA. My brain is still mulling over a lot of different things. As usual, creativity is one of those things.


I found this bookmark that I made, in one of my old notebooks. It reads "Only a food imitates. It is better to do bad work of one's own." - George Bizet

Do I really believe this now?

Psycho Daiko is the second taiko group I belonged to, when I was teaching in Japan. I wrote 2 songs for this group (called "Yaki Neko" and "Sakana Milkshake"!). I didn't think about how "good" they were as compositions at the time. We played them and enjoyed them and the audience enjoyed us. That was enough.


I haven't written anything for many years.

I want to, and have many ideas. But I need to start somewhere...

As usual, my art is following along the same themes. I have many many ideas. But where to start?

A sketchbook.

I'm starting on my new arthouse project tonight - the Sketchbook Project. I'm going to try to post something each week, even if it's bad. It'll be bad work of my own.

The Canvas Project

Imitate

My most recent project is working on 5 mini canvases (3" x 3") from the Art House Coop. (Click on the link to see my portfolio.) Hopefully one of my canvases will be displayed amongst hundreds of other artists' works at the Atlanta Airport from the end of July through the beginning of September. If you happen to be there, look out of me!

The project's instructions were to make anything, based on 5 words that were chosen randomly for me.

Argentum

Wild

Savant

Shimmer

Honestly, I sat on these for about 3 months totally stuck on the concept. Then it hit me - I should do them the way I always do my art. My art is based on plants, people, bright colours, and layering paper. After that, the rest came quickly.

Am I happy with them? Yes. Because I made them without overthinking, they are a good representation of what I do. And this is significant for me! I've spent such a long time trying to figure out what is me.

My favourite one is Savant. I like to think of people as having a garden in their minds. Some have very simple straight connecting branches that rarely change. While others have a constantly growing tangled mess, which yield some thorns and some flowers.

An Average Yurika

Sometimes people ask me how I stay inspired and motivated to keep on creating. Part of it is that I can't help it. Part of it is that I'm selfish and somewhat lazy...

When I'm not in the mood to create, I don't. I used to get frustrated that ideas wouldn't come to me when I wanted them to, but now I go and do something else and consider that time "incubation time." My brain is working on the problem, indirectly and at some point something inevitably comes of it.

I also like to work while I can watch a movie or listen to music or talk on the phone. Somehow, distracting my conscious mind from the art project makes my hands do the work on their own. For the times when I get really stuck, I have a note stuck to my lamp that says, "WHEN STUCK, GO BACK TO MATERIALS." I have been collecting materials for many years (yes, many people would call it bins of junk) and when I go and look at them, I usually get an idea.



I've been making cards for many many years. And I think that over the years it's really been about finding out what my style is, finding out more about ME though creating. I know what I like to make, I know what my body is good at making. I know what I can't do, so I don't force those things, though I am always trying to learn at the same time.





It's really the same with taiko, especially when it comes to soloing. There are still rules to follow and I know what they are and am continually trying to improve. BUT, there comes a point when you need to know who you are musically, to develop beyond...

So I keep plugging away, chugging away, gluing and playing and trying to enjoy the ride.

"Sculpture is like farming. If you keep at it, you can get quite a lot done." - Ruth Asawa

Learning and Relearning from Myself

I'm participating in "The Canvas Project: Volume 2" put on by the Art House Gallery. I'm trying to figure out what my style is.

Looking through old sketchbooks...






"Creativity... is starting with something that moves you aesthetically, a visual attraction and deciding to capture something about it and then allowing yourself to take chances with the medium and style pushing together what feels good and right and trying new things that feel different and scary and taking into consideration the dissonances unil you decide on something that you like and decide that is what defines your style and not caring that other people may not understand or like your style. Creativity = liberation!"

Sometimes I am amazed at how forgetful I am. I've already been through this before!

You can inspire yourself.