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First snow at 555
Across the Bay, yesterday was a snowpocalypse, closing all highways heading west from the city, grounding flights, and delaying trains. But here we only had a lot of rain pouring down on us all day. Until evening when the temperature dropped and the snow began. First a dusting and then quickly accumulating to a nice…
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JA Banking
I am joining the Oyama Senmaida “support staff.” In order to do that, I need an account at JA Bank. Support staff get paid for work, whether peeling potatoes for group lunches, assisting with experience programs, or cutting grass. But Oyama Senmaida only pays out to JA accounts. JA stands for Japan Agriculture and it…
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Origami Vision Boarding, part 3
After matching actions to colors and creating a collage, it was time to paint. Some people in the workshop opted to work with other mediums, but I grabbed my big box of acrylic paint and had some fun. I actually painted two paintings. The first one (pictured above) felt wrong, so I abandoned it and…
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Origami Vision Boarding, Part 2
After defining my actions and assigning them colors (see part 1), I got to work on a collage using origami paper. I began by cutting some random shapes and moved them around on the page until they started to tell a story. I filled in the details as the story unfolded itself in my head.…
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Memorial
Yesterday I went to my first Japanese memorial. Funerals in Japan are very formal and I have yet to attend the official part of them. When I do, I will need to brush up on my etiquette. Yesterday’s event was more casual, an affair put on by the NPO where Asada Daisuke worked for 16…
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Origami Vision Boarding
I am participating in a two-week a Origami Vision Board class led by my friend, Liane Wakabayashi from Genesis Art, https://www.genesiscards.com/ I was already in the process of doing a vision board in my usual way using a feng shui grid when this class fell into my lap. Not wanting to start over from scratch,…
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Hey, Kristen
This morning at 3:04 I heard Tod ask for me, “Hey, Kristen…” and I woke up, braced for the rest of the sentence. Usually it’s a request for settling cats who are getting into trouble. But he was asleep, as I discovered when I rolled towards him and asked if he needed something. “Did you…
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Reworking my portfolio
Do you know when is the best time to rework your portfolio? When you are looking for new clients. And since I am, I’ve given my Work page a once-over. It had grown into a cluttered, overwhelming mess over time. Like all decluttering activities, it was challenging. Almost all of my jobs are interesting in…
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Audience over Product
Your audience is more important than your product or service – especially if you are an artist. As entrepreneurial creative person, it doesn’t matter what you are selling, making, or offering. If you are trying to make a business from creative endeavors, whether as a side hustle or a full time income, you absolutely have…
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Senmaida De-lights
Today I helped out at Oyama Senmaida for the first time. The annual illumination event is over – I wrote about the torch lighting in October – and today we removed all the LED lights, cleaned them, and packed them away for next time. The work itself was not too stressful – I filled three…
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