Naoki Onogawa

April 15, 2021 12:03 AM \

You can’t really appreciate his work until you look at the details of these paper crane trees.  They are the works of Naoki Onogawa who has been fond of making origami since he was a child.  One year after the earthquake on March 11, 2011, he saw a lot of thousand paper cranes, and the paper cranes were placed in a place that was not in the context of peace or war. He says this about his work:

“Incorporating the origami cranes that I encountered in my childhood into my work, I am creating a “place” for origami cranes. Looking back at it, I feel that the origami cranes are somehow precious and have a mysterious “something” hidden in them. And it was also my belief in “beauty”. Through dialogue with the work, I hope that something that will move your heart will be born.”

You can view more of his work on his website and on Instagram.

Images:  Courtesy of Naomi Onogawa. 

Posted in: Handcrafted, Japan, Origami, Paper \ Tagged: , , ,

Andrew Faulkner

April 14, 2021 12:03 AM \

Admiring these spectacular depictions of our favorite city, San Francisco.  They are the creations of contemporary landscape artist Andrew Faulkner. This Bay Area painter was born into a family of artists, designers, and architects, his paintings fuse the structural sensibilities of his architect father and the often riotous color sense of his interior designer mother. He uses rich color to express a dramatic sense of light and space.  The following quotes from the artist gives us an inkling of his painterly style:

“As a child I celebrated coloring outside the lines. Those loose imperfect marks define my gestural painting style to this day.”  

“Many of my landscapes use what I call an “invented color space” where color is used to break up the composition and achieve a sense of depth and atmosphere that can be open to the interpretation of the viewer.” 

More of his work can be viewed on his website, Facebook and Instagram.

Images:  Courtesy of Andrew Faulkner.

Posted in: Fine Art, Painting \ Tagged: ,

Craftie Style

April 13, 2021 12:03 AM \

One of the things we love about Japan are the numerous workshops available.  They also have dozens of online projects like this one from Craftie Style which we will attempt to make.  Instead of stone plastic clay we will be using air dry clay available at most craft stores. After concentrating on making similar pins we hope to graduate to larger projects like hanging ornaments and coasters.  Incidentally, use Google translate since Craftie Style is in Japanese.

Images:  Courtesy of Craftie Style.

Posted in: Ceramics, craft, Japan \ Tagged: , ,
%d bloggers like this: