Art Decisions and more Residency Adventures

Photos from my second week of Artist Residency at Shiro Oni Studio:

I absolutely love the blue wire & yarn crocheted butterfly I created as a centerpiece for my Electric Butterfly Art Installation however the installation said it wasn’t right.  I changed it to one of the bright neon yellow butterflies I created and the centerpiece butterfly is now much easier to see. Sometimes the artist decides the direction, sometimes the art decides for itself.

 Always need more table space, for the moment this stool will do. My favorite project bags, zip bags! They always keep my yarns clean and dry despite my rough & tumble treatment of them.

Everyday, except Wed, we have been enjoying the breakfast set menu of toast, scrambled egg, small salad and a drink at Oni Cafe. This morning we had the opportunity to eat fresh, local blackberries on our salad: 

On our bike ride out to the local riding club here in rural Gunma: 

Kanna Uma no Kai. (the local equestrian club) has Japanese breeds such as Dosanko from Hokkaido and Kiso from Nagano –   We brushed the horses down, fed them, and watched a few members of the riding club.   The mosquitos were thick out there and I had to return to my studio to douse myself in Tropical Strength bug spray.

Hotaru or Firefly! They are quite rare here in Japan and behave differently than the ones I would catch at my grandparent’s place. These slower moving fireflies hover over the nearby Sanba River yet under the overhanging branches of trees. I went with a friend who was doing great capturing photos of them using time-lapse photos. As a non-photographer, I am so very proud of being able to capture this one as he landed on a leaf nearby: 

Despite all of my great residency adventures I did get some work done, really I did! Preparing to hang the piece…

 Hanging the butterflies to the piece –  Realized on Tuesday afternoon that by making the change to the larger frame, I will not have enough yarn or the right sized wire to complete the project by my last day on Saturday. If I was required to have a completed project at the end of this residency with an Open Studio I would have stuck with my original idea but sometimes a better one comes along and you have go with it. Thankfully, I have the ability to obtain more yarn and return to Onishi with my completed piece for display at the town’s Summer Music Festival.

My Open Studio for Electric Butterflies will be at the Natsu Matsuri, July 12 & 13 in Onishi, Gunma, Japan.

Despite this miscalculation I’ve made great progress and definitely feel it has been worth it to have obtained the aluminum frame pieces.

Perfect topping to my hot, busy day on Friday was locally made sorbets using locally grown fruits: Peach, Apple and Yayoihime, a specific type of strawberry: