Blog

Art as a visual journey of one's life

artists, New York tours

21 June 2013

It takes a little while to "come down" after being in New York City. I start to have flashbacks as I reflect on the amazing works and spaces that my group of art explorers and I saw during the most recent walk-to-art New York, in May and June. It takes a little while to digest everything completely, and I have to be careful as I seem to start my sentences with "in NYC..."

The 2013 edition of walk-to-art NY was fabulous and I am incredible grateful to have wonderful participants – enthusiastic, open and patient – as we trekked all over Manhattan and Brooklyn.

One afternoon we had a special visit to The Elizabeth Foundation to see the work and studio space of Tamiko Kawata. A generous, gentle and intelligent artist, she has dedicated her time to the creation of beautiful wearable art, sculptures and installations. Tamiko creates her works through experimenting with materials that reflect her life and thoughts. Small, unpretentious and valueless things from daily life often become the primary medium. Tamiko looks for another language, energy, chaos and harmony, within quiet stillness.

I was fascinated by the Safety Pin Series in which Tamiko spends hours threading pins together to form wearable art and sculptural structures. Coming from Japan, Tamiko had never seen or used a safety pin before arriving in the United States. The artist used to fold everything before her first child was born. What a pleasure to listen to her journey, from a young adult landing in New York, finding work, meeting her husband, learning a new language and understanding what a hot dog was to her senior years as a practicing and exhibiting artist in this wonderful city.

The Safety Pin Series has become part of a continuous body of work. Tamiko imports pins from Japan and spends hours constructing her art. "I came from Japan in my young adult life, and I feel my works are often intuitive reactions to the American life that I have happily adopted; my art making is a visual journey of my life.

"Observing our environment is an exciting daily practice, and nature's phenomena... such as water, mist, shadows, wind are strong inspirations to form my works."

We all walked away thrilled to have met Tamiko. That afternoon she not only shared her studio space and her art with us... Tamiko shared her spirit and her passion.

As I wrote, it takes a little while to "come down" after being in New York City. However, it takes no time to fall in love with it. Over and over again.