Day two at Awagami Factory, Japan.
I brought a bunch of sketches. The idea was to create a body of work, where each work would be able to stand alone, but also be part of a bigger installation consisting of square formats and organic shapes. I started out with the geometric shapes, and within each piece I would work with the same theme, organic and geometric shapes talking together. Day one I had established contact with the pulp. Day two I took up my theme.
“What is this Elly?” We could not establish a detailed dialogue because of the language barrier, but people showed interest in the result. This encouraged me in my approach and the imagination process, to find the story to carry the image. This is “Heavens footstep on Earth”, which of course could be called “the lake”. Here Satomi-san and Ogata-san is moving the image to the drying board.
Next image ready for the vacuum table. I wanted more saturated colors, and worked with stencils in addition to the metal shape.
Day two and I had explored different ways of adding pulp, stenciling out, and as here in the third work, how to draw lines etc. with the pulp. Picture three I called “double portrait of sunset and sunrise”.
As a visiting artist at the Awagami Factory, I could live in the house they rent, only 76 steps from the factory. So convenient. Picture showing the house plus the sliding doors where we were sleeping. First thing I saw when I woke up!
Inside the house there were piles of beautiful papers, free for me to use! Why didn´t the day have more hours? I could not resist – of course, and enjoyed playing around with collage in the evenings.
Pictures of me, plus some more, are taken by Takuma Abe, the visiting artist coordinator at Awagami Factory.