Exhibition

Hey Everyone!

It's been nearly three months, which means time to write something in my blog again. But first of all my apologies for not writing anything for such a long time. I will explain what kept my busy enough not to write anything:

As most of you might have read already on facebook or heard somewhere, I had an exhibition a few weeks back with my good friend Koichiro Kashima ( https://www.koichirokashima.com/ ). After finding and realizing a good gallery to exhibit in, it was time to make artworks. In the exhibition with the entire class earlier in december, I had a great time making something from a huge wooden panel (170x60cm) and turn it into a slightly three-dimensional piece. As I wanted to try out more, I decided to make all my works for the exhibition in this half 3d, half drawing style, using all sorts tools possible. Which meant everything had to made this year.

At the beginning it was still spring break, which is a quite long break from school, so there was plenty of time. Although I had to say working four part-time jobs kept me busy. At the time school started again I realized it wasn't time-technically possible anymore to do everything I wanted, so I stopped with the hotel cleaning job on my day off from school and the online teacher thing, leaving the cramming school teacher work on tuesday and saturday and the teaching job at my university on friday. Besides that, it was school assignments and Japanese study as well, but I particularly wanted to put my attention on the exhibition because I felt it would become a very important experience on the road to becoming an artist.

Which it did. Some things went really well. The pieces in the gallery turned into an united fantasy-like world with tons of small details to discover, even better than we thought it would. Also, going around all sorts of galleries in Kyoto each sunday - talking to artists and gallery owners, while wearing an extremely noticable portfoliocase (picture is added as well), giving out business cards, putting exhibition cards in a lot of places/giving them away personally - really turned out to be helpful as well, as a lot of visitors came.
Getting the hang of how preparations for an exhibition go, is another thing I'm happy to have experienced. For example, one of the most difficult parts was to transport the art to and from the gallery. Everything was slightly 3d, quite large (8 pieces with an average of about 90x60x15cm) and some of them pretty fragile as well.

Which is also one of the things I'm definitely going to better next time. Not just for the inconvenience in transport, but also because of the chance of actually selling something. Large pieces need a high price because you need to show you take your creations seriously, but thinking about the location of the gallery and the sort of visitors that came there, it would have been better to make more smaller pieces. Aside from the size, it also would have been better to create slightly European themed art instead of showing the Japanese influence that I got here, since visitors here are already accustomed to Japanese style and something a bit different might have been more interesting.

Nontheless, I got a great deal of interest in my artworks, gave out of all of the business cards I had prepared and got an invitation from an experienced artist to exhibit together after I come back in Japan after graduating. Plus, the gallery visits I've been making, the odd but really cool portfoliocase, the painted clothes, laptop and the hat (with my name written in Japanese characters - just as the portfoliocase by the way) which I'm wearing all the time, seem to create a rememberable image. Every now and then I'm meeting people who have heard about me, but not seen me yet and since Japanese speaking exchance students who visit galleries a lot are extremely rare, I have succeeded in being an easy to remember character, recognized as a talented, young artist with high expectatinos. :)

But a lot of thanks to Koichiro as well and one of the things I'm most happy about perhaps - making a good friends who also wants to give everything to become one hell of artist. He really took care of a lot of preparions - both in the design of the gallery space and the preparation of his own work. Not only the usual painting part, but creating standards from wood as well and bringing the wooden desk and television case he made way before, which is one of the most coolest handcrafts I've seen all time. Also, his father came to visit each day, driving the car for one hour from Osaka, bringing a good lunch for both Kashima and me each time. Friday, his mother and grandmother came to visit as well and invited me to dinner afterwards, which was one of the highlights of it all.
Really a good looking restaurant (I probably wouldn't have entered on my own) and all sorts of Japanese food never tasted before, that had a special eating method. Luckily, Koichiro's mother explained me all sorts of things, which really was interesting and I had a great time talking to the family of someone I'm getting along with here so well.

Which was all a few weeks back. If that had meant a break, I would have written in my blog that time. As I just came back from Japanese Language Test Level 2 (being the second highest out of five), it was time to study. And study a bit more... In the end of August the result will be online, although I don't think I will pass the test this time. I mistook the time available and left about 10 questions unanswered in on the three main parts. As each parts has a minimum score, it means most of the other answers there have to be correct. Also, overall, there was simply to much information not understood. So, from now one more study and concentrating the art part a bit more specifically, as Japanese knowledge is the basis in getting anywhere in Japan. Next week I want to talk future plans through again with the head of Illustration while I'm still here and create a road to becoming English teacher/awesome craftsman in Japan.

Other events... (sorry, this story is getting quite long, being absent for such a long time) Ah, Naoshima!

The Japanese schoolyear starts in April and ends in February. To make things convenient for my return to the Netherlands, I became a third year student again in April. Which meant, getting new classmates. Standard around the beginning of the third year of Illustration study is a short stay (3 days) in Naoshima, a Japanese island about five hours from Kyoto. Over there we went visiting all sorts of musea and outdoor exhibitions, while making sketches of the environment and having a drinking parting at the evening the second day. Which I'm not going to mention about because, well, definitely not because I became drunk or anything, but just because there weren't that much interesting things about that part that I remember.
Also, the bath house over there, designed by a famous artist, was also quite memorable for its good looks. Nice restaurants, beautiful landscape, nice work-out having to ride a bike on hills the whole day and a great chance to getting to know all the new faces. Ah, also, a lot of fun playing Jenga with the guys on the boat ride the way back. Ever tried playing Jenga on a moving boat? Yeah, well... Quite tricky, and a bit quicker than a usual game...

After that... Hmm... From time to time still eating out with friends and things like that, but the last couple of months it has been a rare occasion though. In a few weeks I'm going to a festival with some friends and in summer holiday there are plans to go around Japan by car to all sorts of big and small places, as a teacher that has lived in the Netherlands for three years has invited me to do so. Other than that there a still about two, three weeks of school left and a lot of things needing to be prepared and a lot of things that I want to do before going back to the Netherlands in the beginning of september.

Well, that's all for this time. Next time probably in the beginning of August. :)

See you then!
Cheers,

Sjoerd