The Harukaze 春風 Spring Breeze project is over now, but I would like to look back and write several articles about it over the next several posts.
For this project, we received many peoples' help. I would like to introduce them here.
We received a lot of volunteer help and participation from Miyu's friends and Japanese Culture Association at WSU. They helped with the trial installation and became the big part for the tea ceremony event on April 12th. From left to right, Sarah, Chaewon, Miyu, Natsuki, Kanna, and Ryotaro. Kanna made the publicity image as well. Missing two people in this picture, but thank you, everyone!
Since the McKnight Art Center atrium is a large space, I opted to receive help from the students from Robert Bubp's Community Arts Engagement class. This class is designed to send students directory to community art projects and give them hands-on experience in project creation in the real world. Lynn, Wyatt, and Sam from the class participated in this project. We worked on variouis works including fablication of my installation, installing, and execution of the tea ceremony event. They worked closely with me including the various behind-the-scenes tasks. For their final assignment, they created their own work in response to my piece, which I am going to share about later. This is a picture of us fablicating a thread piece in the golden morning sun light at McKnight.
Formal Japanese tea ceremony is considered to be a comporehensive art as it includes various art forms such as ceramics, hanging scroll, flower arrangement, architectual design, and garden. With this exhibit, I sought to capture this essence of the tea ceremony environment. However, rather than placing these objects directly in the space, I chose to create a video piece that draws inspiration from a chashitsu, or a tea room.
Here is Rino, providing a calligraphy piece in the place for a hanging scroll. Rino is an exchange student from Tokyo. Her beautiful calligraphy was included in the show card as well, which was a blessing.
Wyatt from the Community Arts Engagement class also helped with the video piece. He is a ceramics major and I asked him to throw a tea bowl for the inclusion of the video clips. He kindly wedged clay and threw a couple of bowls for me.
For the big installation day, I received help from the whole class of Levente Sulyok's Intermediate Painting class. Thanks to their help, the major part of the installation was finished in about 3 hours and half.
Photo credit: Lynn Clark
I really appreciated the final push from Levente, my former painting professor, to make the design even better! It almost made me cry. He looks like flying in this picture!
To be honest, I didn't expect that we were going to receive so much help at the beginning. It happened because the more we prepared, the more we had to do. I also think it was because it attracted attention and got more people interested in the project. Although I don't have photos of all the people who helped, I would like to share my sincere thanks to them. Without their help, this project would not have happened. I would like to express my gratitude by listing their names here.
WSU ADCI Jeff, Austine, & Kendra
Japanese Culture Association at WSU and Miyu’s friends, Ami,
Chaewon, Kanna, Kazune, Natsuki, Rino, & Ryotaro
Robert Burp and the students from his Community Arts
Engagement class, Lynn, Wyatt, & Sam
Levente Sulyok and the whole class of his Intermediate Painting
class
Isledi and Japanese Language program of WSU
Some individuals Lisa, Sloane, Sarah, & James
