On Thanksgiving - my gratitude and my heroes

Windcall 2015 Fundraiser
On this day, I'm feeling thankful for all the opportunities I've had to keep going as an artist. There were times I felt so beat down and didn't know how to keep it going. Blue Mountain Center has given me time and place to work on healing, rejuvenating, and getting creativity back. I don't know how many times BMC has saved my body and soul. I must also say that I am still an artist because of BMC.

BMC also hosts activists because they understand that activists need time and place to recharge their energy too. I met Ron Davis in 2011 when he was at BMC as a Windcall Institute Fellow. Windcall sends activists to BMC - a gift for these hard working people who fight everyday to make our communities better.

Ron says, "Doing community change work can beat you down. Because community change work is a passion, I kept getting back up..." then he went to BMC. You can read the rest in the story. But please consider donating whatever you can for the Windcall Institute. 

As Ron says, "Like millions of others all across the planet, we get tired but we never give up." These people are my heroes.

About the Windcall Institute:
The Windcall Institute is dedicated to nurturing transformative and resilient leadership among community and labor organizers.

What is your relationship with water? Part V

Some examples from the typed responses that I received during the exhibit. Participants typed on a tea-stained Japanese paper with a manual typewriter, and seems to me that many people enjoyed typing with an old manual typewriter! It was fun to hear the sound of typing in the gallery - clack, clack, clack, zzzzzzzzzzzzziiiip, clunk, clack, clack, clack, clad, shhhhhhhhhp!

Read "What is your relationship with water?" Part I, II, III & IV.

What is your relationship with water? Part IV

“What is your relationship with water?” is a participatory installation that I created for my exhibit, “In Solidarity” at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. 

In this installation, participants are offered a piece of original art in exchange for their thoughts on their relationship with water—an act that suggests a reciprocal relationship between the artist and the viewer, and perhaps between humans and water.

Water is an essential resource that nobody, and no thing, can live without. But what’s happening to our water is pretty scary. “What is your relationship with water?” is a simple question but a critical and timely question for all of us. It is an ongoing question that I keep asking myself.

I type this question on Japanese (washi) papers that were soaked and stained in tea/coffee and water. I type on a manual typewriter over and over to meditate on the question.

At the exhibit, participants will leave the gallery with a tea stained washi paper bearing the typed question and some marks made with mineral pigment—as an invitation to plunge deeper into this question as I have been doing, and as a reminder for a deeper appreciation for water.

Installation as of October 29, 2015. It will change as participants' typed responses replace the original sheets. After completing typing their thoughts on their relationship with water, participants select any one of the original sheet with the question to take home with them. Their responses take the spot where the question was hang. 

“In Solidarity” is open through November 25, 2015.

University Gallery at University of Massachusetts Lowell

Mahoney Hall

870 Broadway Street

Lowell, MA

978-934-3491

For Directions & contact

Gallery Hours: M-W 10am - 4pm, Thu 10am - 9pm, Fri & Sat 10am - 3pm

Closed during school breaks.

Read more about "What is your relationship with water?" Part I, II,  III, & V.

Water, Water Everywhere?

Naoe Suzuki's Thirst for Awareness
by Taryn Plumb in artscope magazine: Nov/Dec 2015

Especially in first-world countries, water is a resource that’s very often taken for granted – it comes out of the tap, streams out of the shower, is poured into plastic bottles and driven in by the pallet-full on the back of diesel- belching trucks.

In her latest body of work, Tokyo-born artist Naoe Suzuki strives for viewers to reassess and deeply contemplate their relationship with water – in all its forms. Her works – rendered on equally fragile paper – incorporate tracings of various water bodies... read more. 

To read more, pick up a copy of the latest issue. Click here to find a pick-up location near you or Subscribe.