i’m taking part in a group show called “ahhhhhhh!ha” at the helm gallery in tacoma.  if you’re around in this area, please drop by.

 June offers the boisterous group show Ahhhhhhh!!! Ha. The show will feature nine artists who work with themes of distortion, humor, fantasy, death and the cute.
Sesame Street will meet Super Mario Land on its way over to the Millenium Falcon. Kids will poke themselves with scissors. Cakes and Creampuffs will float in the sky and the mods will dance on them. A big bang will exclaim failure. Monsters and monsters and monsters will eat your face while Mudman comes to town. All the dead birds in the world will congregate. A giant furry thing will get trapped in a pink net. It’s dark. It’s kinda gross. It’s implausible. It’s strangely attractive. It’s worthy of an Ahhhhhhh!!! and a Ha.

Please come to the opening reception June 19th from 5 to 10PM. Bring your dancing shoes.

Artists::

Sean Alexander

Susan Belle

Rumi Koshino

Jasper Kreiger

Jeremiah Maddock

Natalie Miller

Jason Reamer

Yuka Yamaguchi

760 S Broadway, Tacoma, WA

253.627.8845

this is one of my drawings for a group show called ‘fight for flight’ coming up in january, 2008 at thinkspace gallery in LA. the theme is bird/flight. you can read about the show on the gallery page.

this is my remake of a drawing i did in 2001. you can take a look at the older drawing here.

this drawing will be for sale. please contact thinkspace gallery if you’re interested.

‘Fight for Flight‘ - special benefit for API in honour of national bird day

day 1 :: january 4th, 2008 opening reception 7 -10 pm
day 2 :: january 5th 2008 special family day 12-7 pm

thinkspace gallery
4210 Santa Monica blvd. (near Sunset junction)
Los Angels, CA

when i was 17, i used to look like this. now i’m old enough to know i shouldn’t carry a dead fish in my mouth. first of all, that fish is completely decomposed by now.

these days i can’t help but notice the large elephant ears growing over my original ears. using them, i can hear elijah’s voice/crying voice anywhere i go — even when i’m showering. when i hear his voice, i dash over to see what he’s up to. i’m always ready to rescue elijah. i’ve got mama-elephant ears.

when elijah cries because he’s sleepy, i hold him in my arms and rock him until he falls asleep.  he moves his arms around uncontrollably.  it looks like he has at least ten arms.  it could be eleven.  after about 15 - 20 minutes of rocking and whispering, he usually falls asleep and his arms go back to two.

my third leg is for extra support to keep a balance as i rock.

at the end of the day when my arms turn into logs, i use a babybjorn.  he can swing his arms as much as he wants until he falls asleep.  i’m thinking i should make additional nine holes in the babybjorn so that he can put his eleven arms comfortably.

this is second version of my gallery page. the first one was based on my flickr images, but it didn’t work well so i had to remove it after my site got linked from metafilter.

this new version of my gallery is based on the open source singapore image gallery. paul did the work to set it up and design it to match with my blog and shop. it looks nice and clean, and it’s easy to use.

i put up many different image galleries. there’s a collection of my favorite drawings and collections from different seasons. you can watch my style change over time, because i can never stick with one thing for very long. there are also slideshows where you can view a group of my drawings (start the slideshow of my favorite drawings).

putting my new gallery together, i found lots of drawings in my messy files that i haven’t shown yet on this blog. some of them are quite embarrassing, but now that i’m going to be a mama, i can’t be shy anymore…

older drawings from my gallery

first, really really early and really really embarrassing. this is a drawing i did with markers and color pencils back in kyoto in 1999. the japanese text says “the real me is…”. this was my best effort in shading.

that one was popular with young people but old people looked so concerned about my future.

next, something i did in 2004. i showed this with my “loud silence” photographs and useless toys at the women’s art festival in kingston, ontario — my first-ever show.

you can really see the “Action” of the New Me’s. i used this same idea a couple more times to do drawings of heads coming out of me. my mind really is everywhere.

from the same time, this drawing is still one that i like a lot. it’s my secret love-love feeling.

that was drawn with markers (and acrylic paint to decorate the edges) in about 10 minutes. can’t believe i’m showing it to so many people…

my first real show in kingston was at the sleepless goat cafe, in december 2004. i decided i should try to draw something bigger for the first time ever. i did most of the drawings and paintings for the show in about 2 and a half weeks. this was done with color pencils and ballpoint pen.

the title is “zukyuun”, which is a japanese sound effect for an explosion/blasting sound. lots of my drawings from this time have rabbits in them, or fish, or both. arts people (with degrees in fine arts) would ask me about the symbolism of the rabbits and fish. there was no symbolism, i just like drawing rabbits and fish.

here’s another one from the same show, with “rabbit-ojisan”, a middle-aged man wearing a rabbit mask. i always think of men like this to be a little sad but kind.

after that show, i didn’t do much drawing for awhile. in 2005, i did only 3 larger drawings (calcium keeps me calm, i told you, and since the first moment). most of the drawings i did were little doodles on scraps of paper, like this one.

i did a few small drawings in the fall of 2005 when i first came to saskatoon. the sushi shop where i was waitressing asked me to put up some artwork, after seeing my drawings at the fringe festival. this one is called “supper is here”.

all along, i was doing drawings on construction paper. i like construction paper because it’s colorful. here are two i drew more recently, in 2006:

i like to put these construction paper drawings in my online SHOP. the top one, “thank you rabbit”, sold to someone in california. the bottom one, “je suis vide“, is for sale now.

eventually, i got my first show in a gallery, the royal red gallery at phonographique in saskatoon. i had very little to show, so i had to draw like crazy to get ready. a lot of my favorite drawings were done in the month before that show, including my self portrait and chicken fight.

one of my silliest drawings was also from that time, which is based on a painting i did back in 2003 or so. that painting is way, way too embarrassing to show here, so this will be the end of my shameful (”hazukashii~~”) look back at my gallery. time to “hit the beach”.

the japanese text says, “what are you doing? dog eat dog?” in kansai dialect.

it’s hard to be a girl with a fish-hand sometimes…

another drawing from my show in regina this summer.

this drawing will be included for sale on my online shop…

…opening monday!

UPDATE: you can buy this drawing from my SHOP.

the japanese text says, “you know what? you smell a bit fishy…” in kansai dialect, which is the standard japanese… to me :P

i drew this for my show in regina. it will be included for sale on my online shop.

UPDATE: you can buy this drawing from my SHOP.

my brother and i…

we don’t need words to talk.

drawn earlier this year for the phonographique show.

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