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back on the street at the fringe festival

August 3, 2008 in events, festival | 10 comments

ah~, it’s so nice to be on the street with my drawings. i started busking at the fringe festival here in saskatoon last night. this is my first fringe since elijah came along. and this is my first time ever being away from elijah for more than an hour.

i’ve been showing my drawings at galleries nowadays, which is very nice. but i really like being on the street, where most of the people who come by are there just to look around, not because they’re particularly interested in art or in my drawings. i like the randomness of having people stumble upon my work and seeing their reactions, good and bad.

the busking areas at the fringe have been very busy already this year. i’ve been setting up on broadway, near 10th. i have a little table with books of prints and postcards that people can browse through at their own speed. there are a couple little stands that i put single prints in, so people can see them from a distance walking by.

some of the prints and postcards are of my newer drawings that i’ve never made into prints before. the only one of the newer drawings that i’ve shown in saskatoon before is ‘new wings’. the other new drawings are on first view, but i’ve already put the images up on my blog.

for the fringe festival i do a different printing technique than the archival prints i sell in my online shop. they’re not as expensive to make, so i can sell the 8.5 x 11 prints for $10. postcards are sold for $2 each, or 6 for $10 (i’m from kansai, i have to offer a good deal). people keep telling me the prices are way too cheap. i want them to be cheap enough that even little kids don’t have to worry about the cost if they find an image of mine they want to take home.

this year i’ve already had a lot of people coming up to me who know me from somewhere — my blog readers, people who remember me from previous shows in saskatoon, and even some asian girls who saw my drawings in the hong kong fashion magazine, milk.

a couple people asked for my autograph. i double-checked to make sure they weren’t out of their minds.

i got a few negative reactions — people saying ‘urrghh’, or ‘creepy’ — but not as many as i was expecting. one older woman did sniff at me with a disapproving face, which i was glad to see. i don’t know why, but those negative comments don’t hurt me anymore. i kind of enjoy them. a couple of harsh comments go a long way to motivate me to draw more.

i ran into some of the local artists as well — artist kris moffatt, poet taylor leedahl who is representing local book company jackpine press, artist carole epp, and young artist michael. i’m hoping to meet the artist kristin bjornerud who will be back in saskatoon for the summer from hamilton.

if you’re in saskatoon, come and see me on the street at the fringe festival! you can say whatever you want, and you don’t have to pretend to be nice. i’ll be happy to see you anyway.

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Tags: events, festival, fringe-festival, kansai, milk, postcard, print, saskatoon, street, summer, superdiscount

print show at cafe pause in tokyo

January 9, 2008 in drawing, events | 6 comments

i’m doing a show at cafe pause in ikebukuro, tokyo. i’m showing some prints of my favorite drawings. initially, i was planning to show original drawings, but i realized it would be much easier to bring prints with me, especially since i’m travelling with my baby. we all came to japan at the end of december to spend new year’s with my family in wakayama. then paul, elijah and i went to tokyo to set up this show.

this is my first show in japan, actually. i started my art career in canada, years after i left japan in 2000. my work is pretty well known online, with my website and flickr and many links from different sites around the world. i write my blog in english, so my contacts have been mostly non-japanese. i’ve shown work in many different places, but never before in japan.

jean snow and elijah

the person who contacted me to do this show is jean snow. he’s a canadian living in tokyo who writes a blog about design and pop culture in tokyo. he found me after my drawings were linked from drawn!, even though the link was broken (he searched my name on google). jean asked me if i was interested in doing a show at cafe pause, where he sets up events. we arranged the time so we could also spend new year’s with my family on the same trip.

cafe pause is about a 10 minute walk from ikebukuro station. it stands on a corner lot and the two walls facing the streets have big wall-to-wall windows that create an open-air feeling. there are display areas on the pillars and on the walls (but not much wall space because of all the windows). i put up small prints on the bookshelves on the pillars and along one wall, and some big prints on the open wall space. i filled up the space with images tightly, using 44 prints in total (many of them used twice in different places). i made two prints (’inside of me’ and ‘after all’) so large (18 x 24″) that their heads are bigger than lifesize. someday, i’d like to make huge prints that would swallow our minds and bodies –ultraman size would be nice.

it’s been awhile since i did a show in a cafe gallery – my favorite place to show my drawings. i like my work to be seen as part of daily life. people come to a cafe for a cup of coffee or to meet someone, not specifically to look at art. when they go home that evening to have a bath, if they suddenly remember my drawings and the images come out of the mist of the bath, that would be wonderful.

the show will be on until january 13th. the prints are all for sale, and there are free postcards, too.

cafe pause
2-14-12-1F Minami-Ikebukuro
Toshima-ku, Tokyo
171-0022

Phone: 03-5950-6117
Fax: 03-5950-6180

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Tags: bath, cafe, drawing, elijah, events, gallery, japan, jean, new-year, pause, print, show, snow, tokyo, travel

careful printing

September 2, 2006 in events, for sale | 2 comments

(click the image to enlarge)

i’m finally getting my shop together. along with other things, i’m making prints of some of my favorite drawings. paul and i made a lightbox and took high-resolution digital photos of the drawings. my drawings are all figures against an empty background, since i don’t like to draw backgrounds (when you look at someone you love, you don’t see the background anyway). so paul erased the image of the plain paper, leaving the figures against a white or a pale neutral background.

if you’ve seen my one of my drawing videos, you know that i use lots of different color pencils, even just to make a skin color. you can’t really see the all the details online, even in the larger images. the new prints will be made from image files that are 15-20 times larger than the biggest files i put up online. it’s still not quite real life, but you can actually see the different colors coming together.

you can click this image to see a full-size crop (360K file):

i had some trial prints made at a local print shop. they’re using pigment inks on heavy (285 gram) watercolor paper. the inks are UV inks that are supposed to last 100 years without fading (how do they know that?), and the paper is acid-free. i’m making prints in 3 sizes: small (8.5×11″), medium (11×14″) and large (16×20″). the large prints are about the same size as the originals.

everything will be an open edition, because i want as many people as possible to see my work, and the originals for these are not for sale. these are really digital reproductions, not handmade art prints, so i don’t plan to charge too much. they’ll all be signed by me.

i got some sample prints on friday, and i’m very happy with the result. the larger prints are especially nice to look at. it’s nice to be able to look closely at my drawing images without worrying about damaging the originals. i’m always a bit nervous about that.

i’m planning to sell prints online in my shop, and also in person in saskatoon. next saturday (september 9) is the broadway street fair, and i’ve been invited to set up a table to show my work. one week later (september 16), i’m taking part in another street festival, called “the edge”, on 20th street. since it’s called “the edge”, i’m thinking about making my hair stand up on end for that day.

come out and see me if you can!

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Tags: acid-free, digital, events, for sale, print, reproduction, shop, sign

fringing! (first weekend)

August 8, 2006 in events, for sale | 11 comments

well, there was a huge storm friday night and everyone ran for cover. i’d only been at my table for an hour. saturday was sunny but too windy, so i stayed home and slept all day. so the fringe festival only started for me on sunday. today was a holiday, and it was gorgeous — lots of people out having a great time.

i set up my table at noon and stayed until 9:30pm. i met all kinds of interesting people. some of them were from out of town: regina, winnipeg, and even ibaraki, japan. some of them remembered me from the fringe festival last year, or from one of my local shows. it was nice to see some familiar faces.

i probably talked to at least a hundred people today. i was happy that a lot of people liked my stuff. i like watching people laughing, and people laughed a lot when they read my spencer book. it was fun to find out what they thought about my drawings. i got a lot of positive comments, and quite a few people saying “ew” or “yuck!”. both are great feelings to express. :D

here are my favorite things people said to me at the fringe festival this weekend:

10: you’re so japanese. (am i?)
9: those are awesome! (everyone in saskatoon says “awesome”)
8: ouch!
7: there are many strange people, but you’re good at expressing yourself.
6: wow! these are super cool!! where is my wife? (his wife ditched him — she didn’t like my drawings)
5: do you know dali?
4: do you have nightmares?
3: that’s disgusting! (she whispered it under her breath as she walked by)
2: craziest stuff i’ve ever seen
1: do you take any medication?

i’m selling postcards and 8.5 x 11 prints of my color pencil drawings. they’re both printed on white cardstock, so they’re not too expensive to make. i’m selling postcards for $2 each, or a selection of any six for $10. single prints are also $10. the images are the same, only bigger on the prints, and the postcards have my name and the title printed on them. for this kind of street festival, i think it’s the right thing. sales were okay, but i’m just happy to think that my postcards will be put up on someone’s fridge or mailed all over the world.

here are some of my postcards (click to enlarge — slideshow):