Friends!

It’s been a productive few weeks. I found an excellent local printer where I’m currently staying, and have been working with them to get my latest rounds of prints for sale just right. I like them so much, I may just keep them once we move to THE NORTH. I’d hate to find another printer and do all of that shop editing again in a few months 🙂 This was WORK.

So today I am happy to share that these four prints are now available for purchase, and just in time for the holidays! You can find them in my shop.

I’ve been advised that items need to be posted by December 11 in order to reach Japan and the USA, and my printer has a five-day turnaround at the moment. So it seems that orders would have to be placed by December 5th to arrive in time to unwrap for Christmas or Hanukkah, if you celebrate those events.

One of the new projects I can start now is one I am lovingly calling ‘The 8-Year Project’. That’s the working title, mind you, and not what I will call it when it’s done. I don’t want to share too much about it now, but this will require eight years to complete based on the nature of the materials I’m using. It started this week and will continue until I’ve finished.

This piece will be a meditation on time, expectation, and more. I don’t want to give too much away just now. But I will share my progress as I complete the different stages.

Stay tuned, but please don’t hold your breath.

Hi friends!

Today, I am telling you about another art project I’ve got in the works, and I am asking for your help.

I’m planning a large installation piece that will hopefully foster discussion on life as a person living with a disability, social engagement, and understanding.

I’ve had this in my mind since the day I received my first 30-day box of sharps from Copaxone after being diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis in 2006. It’s been that long. And now it’s time to make it. I’m ready now.

This piece will be the size of a room in a home. It will require many parts. I’m going to build it all myself! Fuck MS, amirite? I can do things. I’ve already written to the pharmaceutical companies to ask for their support, but I’d like to make the piece more personal by featuring my friends, followers, and community.

So today, I am asking for your paper donations. I need your package inserts! No, I WANT and NEED them. Above, you can see I’ve photographed my package inserts from the drugs I take. I am asking for yours. I’ve written my name on mine to make it more personal in the final piece. You can choose to do this or not. It’s up to you. I welcome all of them.

Currently, I’m sending proposals to galleries with open calls about the work. It will be costly to build. I am asking them for funding support as well. Let’s hope I get approved all around and that this work won’t be too expensive (like our drugs are) to produce. Wouldn’t it be a delicious added layer if it did?

If you want to participate, please comment here or use the contact form on this site to request my address to send the inserts.

Hi Friends!

I had a wonderful experience at the XIV Florence Biennale.

I met some great artists, made some new friends, talked about materials and techniques, and really came away from it with a new sense of purpose for both myself and my art moving forward.

It was so lovely to be surrounded by so many artists in one place for the duration of the event. It felt so comfortable – like home. We were all a bunch of individuals in a new situation together, and I think that supported quicker bonding and connection-building.

Perhaps it was the combination of place, experience and new connections that were made, but my art is about to change significantly. There are ideas I’ve had in my mind that didn’t have a place to go since 2004. There are things I’ve wanted to do for so long, which didn’t feel like a part of my oeuvre. Now I see that my oeuvre has always been there and I’ve been working towards it this entire time. So perhaps what came before wasn’t exactly the thing I should have been doing, or perhaps a step along the path.

I’m so excited to share the new things as they come into existence.

To see what Florence was like, please head over to my Instagram account: @awomanwithoutacountry . You can see reels and posts of what I did, who I met, and art I loved there.

I’ve got an actual pile of broken ceramics that need mending, that has been sitting patiently through the new year holiday for me to get to it. I haven’t had the time. I’d like to get all of these items done so they can leave the shelf, go on to good homes, and I can focus.

For a while I was in a good flow; it was all going so smoothly. But then other things needed my attention and Christmas came and went, and now feels like the right time to get to them. On these last days of my COVID-19 days off from work, I hope I’ll get to them. I’ve got through everything else, so it feels like the right time.

And then all I’ll have on my plate is the work for Florence!

Wish me luck ❤

Hello friends,

I am pleased to share that Mother and Child will be featured in issue no. 5 of Milked Magazine.

First and foremost, I’m thrilled to be working with a Baltimore-based publication run by fellow MICA grads! Second, I’m so happy that Mother and Child, and my lovely friend Candace Fujii (the ‘mother’) is getting so much love this year. This really will be her year, I think. That is what I hope for her.

From their website: Containing an intentionally curated body of work, conceptually driven, and visually focused, MILKED is a new publication that examines the undertones of the maternal figure. With each issue’s theme centered around a pre-existing topic within art history, MILKED takes narratives of old and filters them through the lens of the maternal nature.

The publication date of no. 5 hasn’t been decided yet, but it’s been said that it should come out during the month of November. You can follow them on instagram if you’re interested or want some kind of hard copy of the publication – I will not be the only artist featured!

I am pleased and honored to share that two of my pieces, 21. Mother and Child and 43. Yoga no Tori, have been accepted as donations to adorn the walls of the new Lifebridge Center for Hope in Baltimore, Maryland.

From the Lifebridge website: Advancing hope, healing, and resilience for those impacted by trauma, abuse, and violence through comprehensive response, treatment, education, and prevention. Creating a center of excellence and new response model LifeBridge Health’s Center for Hope provides intervention & prevention for: Child Abuse, Domestic Violence, Street Violence, Safe Streets, and Elder Justice for survivors, caregivers, and communities.

I am positively thrilled to send my art to such a worthy and necessary facility in the city that nurtured and educated me as an emerging artist. Baltimore, you’re home to me. This feels like giving back.