opening night!

Our Trans-Pacific Art Show Opening Night was all I hoped for and more. I'm still in awe of all the wonderful people we had collaborating together to make this idea a reality. It was an event that attracted the nicest people around. May I take you on a tour of our evening?

Entrance to Bay Street Cafe'. My latest painting greets you!

Just inside, canvases by Rica and Trina, Ikecoo's sculpture, Yukie's pottery and Yuuco's printed bags.

Rica chats with two guests who are about to take up oil painting.

Many people were fascinated by the Mail Art Suitcase ~ so much to discover in there!

Where better to enjoy a chai tea than surrounded by art and music?

Speaking of music, Walter played for us most of the evening ~ such a treat!

The murals at Bay St. are lovely & complimented my canvas and Shingo's framed works.

Three of Chiori's new acrylics: Morning, Daytime and Night.

Rica's print went well with Ikecoo's Animal Kingdom illustrations.

Ben was inspired to sit down and start drawing. He gathered a crowd; Rica and I were thrilled to have live art at our show!

Kanae's triptych got a lot of attention. This quiet wall really displayed the detail of her work.

Anyone like sweets? Or savories?

Cheesecake... mmm...

As promised, Sayid made his now famous coffee art too!

One young artist brought us her portfolio to review. She's only 6 years old but very dedicated to art.

We hung one of her drawings in the show and took a picture together, posed like the lady she drew. Her mom has promised to send me photos of her new artworks now and then! :)

There actually ended up being three additional drawings from young artists added to our show, which was a delightful highlight of the night as they were so proud to participate and become a part of the "magic". We received the sweetest notes and drawings in the guest book describing the night as "magical"!

I am so thankful to everyone that came to support us, and everyone that helped to make this happen! All the artists, all the Bay St. staff, Davin (our coordinator), our families and all the musicians, artists, photographers and other art lovers that joined us ~ it was a splendid evening! Thank you!

Our art will be on display for three weeks, so if you missed out on Opening Night there's still time to enjoy!

a t-rex in my mailbox

The cool clothespin photo inspired me to photograph these on the clothesline but the light wasn't quite in the right place and the line kept wanting to twirl. Harder than I thought!

My first mail art of the year arrived from the sweet and generous Jeannine Saylor, who sent me hand-drawn stickers, a charming assortment of illustrations, a stamped letter and photos all tucked into a handmade envelope. She sent this all to me even though I actually owe her at least two envelopes of mail (and now three!). But that is Jeannine for you ~ she is super kind and thoughtful like that. I am very lucky to know her. Check it out:

I pinned them to my grape vine trellis instead where I could admire them all together.

The T-Rex is colored in a soft palette with (I think) colored pencil. It makes me think he's very gentle and is probably opening his mouth to sing rather than to eat. The daffodil is also very soft and springlike. As the weather gets chillier here, I'm grateful for spring reminders!

Additionally, as she promised on her blog, she sent me Valeria Poropat's Traveling Sketchbook, which is small and delicate ~ not what I had expected from seeing earlier artists post photos of their contributions! I was expecting a big, fat journal and here it was so tiny and light. It was a nice surprise.

Each panel is fairly narrow and long and the theme is completely open. Here it is with all the accordion folds opened, up to my blank panel that awaits me.

The book started with Valeria in Rome and has since been to Serbia, and various places on the East Coast and in Canada.

What shall I draw? I haven't decided yet. Am still enjoying all the goodies Jeannine sent me and the seven illustrations in this booklet that have come before mine. Hmmm, this will be fun!

new painting in progress

Hung my painting on the fence this morning to take a pic in the early light. :)

Hello! I wanted to share a work-in-progress that I'm preparing for this weekend's show. It has a couple layers of acrylic paint, medium and rice paper on it and I intend to do several more before Opening Night this Saturday.

It's developing into a vision of the world's creation, so I want to make it even busier, more colorful and hopefully exploding with spores and growth and activity. I posted close-up details of it on flickr and would love to hear what you think.

To me, creation is colorful, busy, wild and energetic!

xo kimi

10 artists at bay st. cafe'

The far right panel will be the front page. Middle panel is the back when folded.

The tri-folds open up to reveal the story of the show and its 10 artists.

 As you can see, I've designed a mini-brochure for our upcoming Trans-Pacific Art Show at the Bay Street Cafe' in Fremont, CA! There will be five artists from Japan and five from the Bay Area. We had a meeting today and I came home buoyed by everyone's warmth and enthusiasm ~ really, I was floating up by the ceiling with happiness!

I can't thank Lotfi and Zack, the owners of Bay Street Cafe' enough. The space is beautiful, from the brick exterior to the high ceilings inside and art-deco-inspired murals. Davin, an artist who is helping us put the show together, has also been invaluable in his support.

We found out today that there will also be some coffee art. Check these out!

I hope you'll join us on Opening Night, January 21 at 6:00 pm. 4000 Bay Street is the place to be!

suitcase of treasures

A sweet artistic friend, whose middle name just happens to be Kimi, gave me a vintage suitcase! It's just beautiful and will be perfect for carrying art.

Trying it out, I filled it up with mail art from artist friends around the world ~ Jessica Gowling in Canada, Juriko Kosaka in Japan, Gizem Vural in Turkey, Emily Orpin in Korea, Jeannine Saylor in Canada, and Toni Rica in the U.S.A.

With a little work on the presentation of the pieces ~ maybe some in frames? maybe some strung on ribbon from the top? ~ this little collection could make a nice addition to our Bay Street Cafe' art show. I will ask the artists if they'd like to be included in this way.

a new year

The start of a new year feels like a brand new sketchbook to fill with good things.

Hello, friends and happy new year! 

I wish you daily inspiration, joy, friendship and creativity. 

May you have a year of smooth sailing and discovery, 

and may you reach your goals and have fun along the way! 

Let's have a great new year!

I took a little time at the end of 2011 to prepare for 2012's arrival, cleaning up my house and artistic workspace so I could start the year off with a fresh space for getting lots of things done. Since I could see the top of my desk again and my materials were so accessible, I started a new painting for our show on January 21st, and finally got started on my Sketchbook Project (due to be mailed before the month's end). Hooray! Neither painting nor book pages are done, but I'd like to share the direction I'm headed ...

I added some of my favorite rice paper to the book.

I unbound my sketchbook and cut new pages for it, and I'm opening with two sheets of rice paper that have tiny gold threads running through them because coupled with the cardboard cover they somehow put me in the mood for drawing.

The next page uses paper from the original book. I've cut the top to be a mountainous skyline and am using it for a title page. For now, I've penciled in "uncharted waters" but I'll probably use a fine black pen for longevity.

The mountain page turns to reveal a larger landscape. I laid down a watercolor wash and will draw in a sailing boat in the lower right where I've left white space. Perhaps the mountain will be an iceberg?

I used watercolor paper on the new page to hold the paint better.

Next will come some cut-out pages that layer over each other to create the whole scene. I did a lot of drawing in my Sketchbook Project last year; this year I'm trying out some new approaches. I'm liking its simplicity.

Can you see it will become a breaching whale?

The background of these photos is from a corner of the painting I'm working on. I've just laid down two washes and will build these up with a number of layers. I'll share the progress as it comes... hoping for an artistically prolific new year!

Happy New Year everyone! Time for me to go browse your blogs and see what you're creating in 2012.

xo ~kimi