Collaboration Update #4

HITOSHI

-20 in the backyard. Snow sprinkled on bamboo. Quickly snapped black and white photo of an ink drawing which has been slightly smudged
-20 in the backyard. Snow sprinkled on bamboo. Quickly snapped photo. Smudge. Permanent. 

Bamboo: food, home, music, youth, strength, bending, elegance, simplicity. Bamboo is and always has been a significant part of me. This week’s submission is a calligraphy ink drawing of bamboo using techniques I learned from my uncle and whose bamboo art hangs above my workspace. My piece was inspired by Will’s stickers that pushed me to consider who I am within Canada as a Japanese man and what I can contribute to our project. 

Who am I? Like bamboo, I want to bend rather than break. I grow and change quickly when the conditions are just right and slow down and wait when they aren’t.  

(Many thanks to my wife for capturing my ideas in words.) 

Hitoshi Sugiyama – Photos 

Will Shintani – Sticker Design 

black and white bamboo photo in the background in the foreground, Will Shintani's Artist logo/name sticker

WILL

still from Will's animated video of a bunch of crazed people walking in a group against a purple background and grey ground.

We talked about the cyclical nature of life. a lot of thinking this past week. I wanted to try something that was different from my usual creative instincts.

I made a new video, was just playing around with animation. Never tried it, so I just looked up a reference for frame by frame walking animation. it’s pretty straightforward, so I tried to have fun within the animation in each individual frame.

It’s a very sloppy drawing but you can see the point of it, i think. I mean, it’s just a guy walking, haha.

I added a track that Hitoshi made a few years back. I wanted to sync the beat with the steps, and this was the perfect pace. I found it on his youtube channel:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCY9iKEPOUXJuH5-fCEVzwXQ/videos