Tightrope
Gone the days of simple pleasures.
Here the days of drastic measures.
Jimhay�2014
Tension fills our world after 9/11. Culture, politics, religion, games and sports are all more extreme. I started Tightrope in 2001, but set it aside as too painful. Completed in 2014.
The foreground layer shows a bespectacled man and his wife enjoying green tea. They watch a blue rabbit holding an umbrella while juggling USA and Japan balls as he balances precariously on a tightrope. Two floating figures; "Princess Moonlight" and "Grand Sun"* hold the rope. "Deer Hunter" is partly hidden behind with two Bandolier slung across his chest.
The next four rings move upwards holding almost 30 members of an audience in various degrees of participation, from rapt attention to complete unawareness.
Tightrope really did wait about a dozen years. The events of 2001 were too upsetting and some of the decisions that followed were almost equally wrong-headed. When I finally returned to the piece I made it much larger, extending the two main figures and adding the bandolier to the deer. If we can shoot deer, perhaps deer should be able to shoot back. I played with the light, casting the blue moonlight across the space and having the spotlight throw light on the audience. I loved pulling images from other places. A 'collage collage remix' of cloth figures, playing cards, objects and ink drawings became the audience.
The figures I used for Princess Moonlight and Grand Sun were my two grandchildren, age 3 and 1. When they saw the piece after completion, they had become high school students and there were two more grandchildren in the family. Life goes on.
I was presented a Creative Prize at Tokyo International Great Quilt Festival at Tokyo Dome, 2015. This was the ninth time that I received a major prize there. I always felt somewhat casual about these honors, but this time seemed more memorable. Perhaps I am getting old enough to realize how precious this is.
I live halfway around the globe at the base of a mountain in Japan, my daily view is rice fields and rows of cabbage. Studio Art Quilt Associates has given me an entr�e to the world. I am in several traveling exhibitions on four continents. Thank you SAQA.
Gone the days of simple pleasures.
Here the days of drastic measures.
Jimhay�2014
Tension fills our world after 9/11. Culture, politics, religion, games and sports are all more extreme. I started Tightrope in 2001, but set it aside as too painful. Completed in 2014.
The foreground layer shows a bespectacled man and his wife enjoying green tea. They watch a blue rabbit holding an umbrella while juggling USA and Japan balls as he balances precariously on a tightrope. Two floating figures; "Princess Moonlight" and "Grand Sun"* hold the rope. "Deer Hunter" is partly hidden behind with two Bandolier slung across his chest.
The next four rings move upwards holding almost 30 members of an audience in various degrees of participation, from rapt attention to complete unawareness.
Tightrope really did wait about a dozen years. The events of 2001 were too upsetting and some of the decisions that followed were almost equally wrong-headed. When I finally returned to the piece I made it much larger, extending the two main figures and adding the bandolier to the deer. If we can shoot deer, perhaps deer should be able to shoot back. I played with the light, casting the blue moonlight across the space and having the spotlight throw light on the audience. I loved pulling images from other places. A 'collage collage remix' of cloth figures, playing cards, objects and ink drawings became the audience.
The figures I used for Princess Moonlight and Grand Sun were my two grandchildren, age 3 and 1. When they saw the piece after completion, they had become high school students and there were two more grandchildren in the family. Life goes on.
I was presented a Creative Prize at Tokyo International Great Quilt Festival at Tokyo Dome, 2015. This was the ninth time that I received a major prize there. I always felt somewhat casual about these honors, but this time seemed more memorable. Perhaps I am getting old enough to realize how precious this is.
I live halfway around the globe at the base of a mountain in Japan, my daily view is rice fields and rows of cabbage. Studio Art Quilt Associates has given me an entr�e to the world. I am in several traveling exhibitions on four continents. Thank you SAQA.
Materials
Materials Kimono and Obi cloth, Gunma Isesaki Meisen cloth, transparent cloth, lace, old shirt, ink drawings on cloth, playing card, found object, toy Mexican gun belts and bullets, braided cloth rope
Techniques
machine sewn, appliqu�, 'collage collage remix', ink drawing on cloth, found objects