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by Leonie Andrews

The dreaded lurgy

There are rhythms to all residences, but what I wasn’t expecting was to get laid low by food poisoning! It’s certainly put a damper on the past couple of days. Just when I thought I was improving my body decided otherwise. It has been difficult to accept that I can’t do the things I want to, however as we are travelling to see some of the Setouchi Triennial so getting better is the priority. 

Work has been moving along steadily with new ideas developing as I stitch away. In the lead up to the open studio I have also been working on a catalogue to accompany my pieces of work.

Work in progress, sitich on photographic prints

We have also been out with the Tokyo Sketchers again. It’s great to catch up with them although our plan to sketch the Harajuku Station turned out to be somewhat of a challenge.  There was nowhere to sit and sketch so after our scheduled hour of drawing everyone’s feet were really aching. Luckily we retreated to a nearby cafe where we continued to draw, with the added bonus of good coffee to go with it.

Harajuku Station tower against a backdrop of apartments

I also managed to tick off one of my ‘must dos’ for this trip – a visit to the art store (that seems a pale description), called Pigment. It is located in a rather barren commercial part of the city, well away from the glitzy parts of the city which would seem to be the obvious place for it to be located.

The exterior of Pigment, a hint of the style of this amazing store

Inside are so many pigments, a whole wall of them, not to mention the odd brush of several hundred! 

Would you like another brush to go with that one?

Not only are the displays works of art in themselves, but so are the individual tools. 

Exquisite agate topped tools for burnishing gold and other metal leaf

It will surprise no one that I left this store with a significantly lowered bank account. 

PS We have made it to the Setouchi Triennial. There is an overwhelming amount to see and do but we will try.

by Leonie Andrews

In the  Moment

I will be having an open studio to mark the end of my residency at the Youkobo Art Space in Tokyo. My residency has been made possible through the Asialink Arts Residency Program, supported by the ACT Government and the Australia Council of the Arts.

The studio will be open from Wednesday 26 October from 12.00 noon until Sunday 30 October, 17.00. 

The  opening is on the evening of Friday 28 October. Everyone is welcome!

Youkobo Art Space

善福寺3-2-10 Suginami-ku, Tokyo, Japan 167-0041

Access details can be found here.

https://www.facebook.com/events/191778224583413/?ti=as

by Leonie Andrews

Naturally 

After a long days stitching I decided to take myself to the local park for a bit of relaxtion. Of course my sketchbook came along, but I did forget my paintbox. These sketches were done with some water-soluble pencils that I did remember to take. 

The egrets were most obliging, standing so still waiting for their dinner

Black Cormorants, a Great Egret, along with a Grey Heron

These birds were roosting near to the small Shinto shrine which is situated on a small island in the upper pool, or Kami-ike (which roughly translated means the Shrine pond). 

Pencil sketch with colour added after I got home.

by Leonie Andrews

Tokyo and other distractions

​It’s a cliche but time is going by so quickly at my residency that I am torn between making work and taking in all that the city has to offer. So the decision has to be made about going to exhibitions and events and working in the studio. 

My compromise is to use my travels through the city to collect material that I can use in my work. More importantly  I cannot stitch for extended periods of time without running the risk of causing muscle strain so regular breaks are necessary. (OK that’s my excuse). 

Sketches on the subway

I wouldn’t even try to count the number of galleries in Tokyo, there are just too many. In my first two and a half weeks I’ve seen exhibitions of Venetian Renaissance paintings, works from the Pompidou Centre in Paris and an excellent retrospective of Japanese-born photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto at the recently re-furbished Tokyo Photography Museum. 

Sketching at the sumo wrestling

In parallel to the stitching I mentioned in the last post I  am also working with photos I’ve taken, adding to them to make new images and making collages from catalogues and other things I have found. 

Collageof a beauty catalogue

Don’t ask me where this is all going, that’s the whole point of making new work while on a residency!

by Leonie Andrews

What do you do at an artist’s residency?

That’s the question I have been asked the most before I came to Japan. In short it’s an opportunity for an artist to produce whatever work they want over a specific time. It’s rather like a writer’s retreat, but with more messy fun stuff to play with. In my case I have two months at Youkobo to spend doing pretty much whatever I want to and therein lies the challenge.

Pedestrian mall in the nearby suburb of Kichijoji

I don’t have to produce anything specific while I am here, but some artist’s use the time at a residency to prepare for an exhibition or complete a specific body of work. At the end of my time at Youkobo I will have an ‘open studio’ where anyone can come along and see the work that I have been making. My goal is to produce new work that will also be shown when I return to Australia.

Some of the work I am making is related to what I have made before. I am also open to new ideas and already I have made some different types of work to my previous pieces. That’s the fun part, seeing where those ideas take me.

The laneway near the Igusa Hachimangu Shrine

I didn’t prepare specific work to take with me to Japan, because I wasn’t sure what I would find when I arrived. I certainly bought lots of art materials along! I had one large packing cube of sketchbooks paint and the like and a smaller packing cube of material threads and general sewing stuff. 

What I do have are some strategies to get me started. I have my ‘working wall’ where I stick up things I’m working on. I also a few pieces for inspiration that I  brought from Canberra. 

The ‘working wall’ a work in progress

I’m currently working on a piece of stitching which is like a diary of some of the things I am seeing around our part of town. I love taking photos of odd bits and pieces, the sort of thing that you may not think of as subject matter for stitching. I like road repairs, decaying buildings, rusty things and odd stuff, like the large goldfish you can see in the picture of my ‘working wall’. (We found the goldfish lying in the middle of the footpath near our Canberra home one day – you see, quite odd). 

I will work on this piece most days, as it takes a lot of time to stitch something this size, even when it is quite narrow. 

My daily stitching piece another ‘work in progress’

Of course I don’t sit in the studio all day either. A whole other part of being here is to get out and about to all sorts of activities, explore  and be inspired by the city, but more of that in another post. 

Chatting with the Peach Girl at the Momoshi Elementary School Autumn Festival