five years ago, on canada day, i got engaged. we were watching the fireworks when paul asked me. one year ago, on canada day, we moved to saskatoon. we could see the fireworks from the highway driving in at night.
today, on canada day, there’s an article about me in the saskatoon star-phoenix! paul took my photo (you can almost see him reflected in the shiny desk lamp).
i was interviewed by steven ross smith back in april. he came to my apartment. the interview was supposed to take 90 minutes but we ended up talking for three hours. i’m not very good at talking about myself, expecially to someone i don’t really know, but it was fun talking to him. he was very pleasant.
he asked me a lot of questions about what kind of work i do. he also asked me what kind of artist i am. i didn’t really know what to say. i mostly just do things to amuse myself. i don’t have a particular concept that i’m trying to achieve. i just work on my technique, especially for drawing. i really don’t know what kind of artist i am. i’m not even sure that’s important. so it’s hard for me to answer questions like that.
the photo caption says “yuka yamaguchi is a conceptual artist, blogger, and new media artist”. i mostly use colour pencils and paper, so i thought i was old school. but i guess i do use a digital camera…
the interviewer seemed to think this entire website is art. he even thought the giant pink grapefruit jello i made was an art project. that’s quite flattering, but honestly, it was just me wanting to fulfill a lifetime dream: to make a giant pink jello. maybe it is art, i don’t know, but i didn’t intend it to be art, just fun. in the end, it was jello — high-fibre jello. it really was a lot of work to eat it all.
overall, i’m very happy with the article. i think the interviewer tried very hard to understand me — it’s not his fault that my ideas aren’t very clear. i’m also proud to be in a canadian newspaper as an immigrant from japan on canada day. i like meeting other immigrants here: today i had coffee with a couple from iran. we talked about iran and japan and canada, and many different soccer games, including the thrilling england-portugal penalty kicks today. another nice canada day.
