I haven’t blogged in so long that I almost forgot my password. And this is what happens to me sometimes – in particular this year; where I am in the midst (the deep tunnels) of several different kinds of projects that seem to start out in a very traditional Capricorn-like format. BUT for some reason, as life does – takes a turn and things change…and well, here we are in August with several projects on the go.  I will blame it on the year of the unpredictable Water Dragon…

My summer days have been filled with animating – more specifically rotoscoping (tracing every frame of a pre-shot video) and in the middle and sometimes end of a short film called Shiro Yagi.  The film uses the found music of my late maternal grandfather as a starting point of several interweaving narratives and sites of memory. In this very final stage it has really become a process of suturing together images and stacks of drawings. It is even more comparative and closer to the actions of painting. The layering of textures and tones. I had not imagined I would focus so much time on a single image that would later become an assemblage of moving images that will very quickly speed by in front of our eyes.

The film has gone through several phases over the last few years and I’ve had the  pleasure of working with some fantastic collaborators including Antoine Bédard, Takeo Yamashiro , mimi’s ami, Catrina Megumi Longmuir, Asa Mori, Maiko Bae Yamamoto, James Long, James Proudfoot, a great Japanese Canadian line dancing team, and more. And of course, my mother, several family members and friends who’ve stood in for the characters that appear in the animation.

I’m completing this film as part of the Cineworks LAIR (local artist in residence) program. You can find me down at the Cineworks Annex -plugging away – come knock and visit; but bring a snack, please. The finished work will be screened October 6th! But a small installation version of it will be shown as part of SWARM September 7th from 8pm-11pm at the studio. Don’t miss out!

Here are some of the ‘behind-the-scene’ and in-process stills from the production. As we lead up to October I promise to blog more about the details and my process.

shooting for rotoscope footage

green screen footage

testing the paper cuts

production still Shiro Yagi

Yokai & Other Spirits, 2011. Photo Credit: Dalia Vukmirovic

We are opening the exhibition Lost Secrets of the Royal this Wednesday November 9th at the Blackwood Gallery and the e|gallery in Mississauga. Bobbi and I have been busily installing this piece for the last few days! My installation is part of an exhibition with new commissioned pieces by Daichi Saito, Louise Noguchi, soJin Chun and is part of the Reel Asian Film Festival. Louise and soJin’s work is exhibited at the A Space Gallery and has a reception November 12th.  There is also a group artist talk that takes place at A Space Gallery November 12th at 3pm.  Hope to see you there!

Every so often you have to get yourself to places where you will find unlikely scenes. Places where you can sit with your sketchbook and draw things in a different environment. I did a few sketches of random people amidst a food court at the Crystal Mall in Burnaby after a long walk through Central Park. **Squirrels in Central Park are both aggressive and charge at you..even if you don’t have food. So I found myself screaming as I went on this walk. Which was startling for the joggers I’m sure.

Anyways, this exercise of quick sketches is both fun and rewarding. I tried the same excercise once in the shinkansen train in Japan and ended up with a series of sketches of people sleeping. Here’s one from that afternoon. If you are out at the Crystal Mall (while on your way to the heart of Burnaby’s Metropolis Metrotown) be sure to try the soup dumplings at Northern Meixi Fast Food…casual fast food but tasty. But my all time favorite soup dumplings are from Lin’s on W. Broadway…bring your sketchbooks and empty stomachs there for sure!

sketch of 300 block Powell Street pre WWII

A friend of mine recently said to me in an email about the anticipation of my next blog post! So this is for you – you know who you are! This summer I have birthed many a project – many in the form of collaborations and many  from a place of these things (and I’m going to begin listing in no particular order)…1. improvisation 2. the unexpected 3. the place of change (which is often uncomfortable and has no words or language yet because really you are just going through it and processing it…) 4. patience.  There is a place in my practice that is highly social and collaborative and there is another place that is still and very quiet – it has been hard to get there this summer with all the other excitment and when I have been able to arrive there it has been in pockets and mostly really late at night.

The Vancouver Drawn Down Finale is happening July 23rd across 9 sites in Vancouver. Please join  my colleagues Elizabeth MacKenzie, Kristina Fiedrich and our artist interns for some fun, collaborative, come-and-go drawing workshops. Pick up a Finale map and find a venue close to you. Bring your friends and whomever..you don’t need to be Dr. K.P.Drawing Expert Extraordinaire Phd in Drawing – it is to remind us that anyone and everyone should be drawing. And what about our Daily Drawing excercises? If you haven’t been following along it is not too late to do so. I’m going to miss the fun as I will be travelling to Calgary, Alberta to perform in Bioboxes with Yasser, Marco, Donna, Paul, Anita and our director, Maiko at the Calgary Folk Festival. If you are in Calgary these are 6 one-on-one intimate performances you don’t want to miss. Please bring your breath mints and fear not sitting inches away from the performer’s face.

Okay, but back to the still and quiet place…the two projects that require that careful eye and ear to the grindstone is the Open Doors Panel project – launching at the Powell Street Festival in a few weeks and Yokai for LIFT and Reel Asian (my infamous rotoscoping 24 frames a second piece). Both have me visiting archival material and have me sifting through a different time. Both of these projects require patience -thank goodness I am the child of the re-mixed Pat Morita frorm Karate Kid and Yoda. This one image (for the Open Doors) that I have sketched up is from a photograph from the VPL collection of the 300 Block Powell Street. A version of it was traced at the very beginning of the project and this new variation of it was done tonight. It was initially  not going to make it into the set of panels but I’ve included it in a mini, foldout accordion booklet  that will act as the guide to the panels. There is something that I’m drawn to in the original photo – the woman stands with her back to the camera, her baby over her shoulder as she looks down Powell Street. In the original photo there are 2 other figures on the street but otherwise it looks vacated and empty..almost ghostly. Even if we cannot see her gaze, there is a something in her stance that suggests a determination as she focuses straight down the street in what appears to be a still and quiet Vancouver.

Shita Ga Nagai Obake

Hokori Darake Obake

Futago Tamago Obake

Gororo Obake

Shita Ga Nagai Obake 2

When I was a kid I remember watching and listening to a lot of old Japanese ghost stories. Ghosts or Obakemono, in Japanese,  were other worldly transformations that seemed to exist quite naturally in our family when stories of long ago were being passed around. Obakemono are of the family of Yokai – ghosts and creatures from Japanese folkore. One of my fondest memories is watching an animated TV series  called Obake No Q Taro. We would visit the Japanese video store and rent these animations along with very over-the-top, dramatic soap operas for my parents.  Q Taro lived at the Ohara home and had day-to-day adventures as a silly little ghost in the town.

I am noticing that in my blog drawings, a lot of that ghost imagery from childhood re-surfacing. These charcoal and graphite obake were made over the last few days. I’ve been inspired by the processes of drawing that we are developing through another project with the artist team at Vancouver Draw Down by trying to make the process of drawing as random and improvisational as possible. A simple swipe of charcoal leads to some kind of mark-making that has spun into these weird and scary looking spirits.

Three of these lucky obake are going to be donated to the Powell Street Festival’s 35th Anniversary Fundraiser KANPAI! which takes place June. 15 at Performance Works. I hear that there will be square dancing with Shout White Dragon, a live and silent auction, cash bar, Japanese appetizers..and more! No dancing experience required.